Highs and Lows to drop a collaboration with Asics

Perth-born and raised store Highs And Lows are about to drop a collaboration with global sneaker brand Asics.

The best part is that local sneakerheads can get their hands — or feet — on a pair of the special edition HAL Studios X Asics GEL-1130 “Earth” before the rest of the world.

These kinds of international shoe deals are rare for an Aussie streetwear label, let alone a West Aussie one.

But these opportunities come with the territory when you’ve been operating for 17 years and have a decade-long partnership with Asics as well as produced numerous hard-hitting collaborations, just as Highs And Lows founder Matthew Thomas has done.

“Being the collaborative partner, we’re the lead,” Thomas told AAA.

“Our plan is to try and offer people on Easter Saturday, the chance to go both into our Claremont store, and our King Street store and be able to buy them on the day instead of just selling them online,” he said.

While “a lot’s changed in the 17 years we’ve been around”, Thomas has seen the retail landscape return to “ bricks and mortar” and revive our cities.

“Maybe (people) have seen it (the collaboration) on the internet and be like ‘man, I wouldn’t have been able to get a pair’ and then maybe just walk into their local store and buy a shoe that’s globally recognised,” he said.

HAL Studios launched in May last year under the creative direction of John Bouquet and is a multi-faceted creative house.

“We wanted to expand on something we both really thought was necessary which was to give Highs And Lows a brand that sat outside of its bricks and mortar history,” Thomas said.

“But still kind of had a lineage to the name, too, hence why we kept the HAL, and the studio’s part is really what you do in a studio, which is like a think tank.”