The Purple Earth Hypothesis

The swag saga behind the Blackbird Spyplane x Obōz Purple Earth Swagtooth

Welcome to Blackbird Spyplane.

Check out our comprehensive new Home Goods Index.

The B.L.I.S.S. List — a helpful rundown of Beautiful Life-Improving Spyplane Staples, from incense to bedsheets to underwear — is here.

Mach 3+ city intel for traveling the entire planet is here.

When you’re as good as Blackbird Spyplane at finding, wearing and writing about cool unique things, sometimes — rarely, judiciously, exquisitely — you’re tempted to make a cool unique thing, too.

And this week you can finally slip into a pair of the fantastic Blackbird Spyplane x Obōz “Purple Earth” Swagtooth Lows, which we’ve been helping to cook up for over a year now. The New York Times broke the news on these the other day. Industry bible Footwear News called them “the Perfect Versatile Hiking Boot for Fall.” And friends, we’re in Hog Heaven about how they turned out.

Here’s what you need to know up top:

• They’re available in-store right now from Colbo in NYC, Neighbour in Vancouver, Nitty Gritty in Stockholm, Stand Up Comedy in Portland, and Understory in Oakland. If you’re local to one of these shops, check the shoe out in person. If not, and you are looking to secure a pair before the online drop, hit up the shop and see if you can place an order. (Our sizing guidance is below.)

• The shoes go live on the 5 shops’ websites this Thursday, October 3rd, if they have any remaining pairs.

• 🥂 Thursday night we’re hosting a launch party with Obōz at Colbo, 51 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Come say what’s up, cop some Swagtooths if any are still in stock, and drink some Zev Rovine wines courtesy of Obōz, along with non-alcoholic beverages courtesy of Ghia.

• The shoes hit the Obōz site on Friday, October 4th at 10 a.m. PT/ 1 p.m. ET. Obōz does not ship outside the U.S., unfortunately, so if you’re an international Spyfriend, the stockists are your best bet.

• Sizing-wise, Erin and I both take a 1/2 size up from what we normally wear. I’m a 10.5 in most New Balances and Hokas, and I take an 11 in the Swagtooth. Erin, normally a women’s size 9, takes a women’s 9.5 in these. The available range is 5M / 6.5W to 13M / 14.5W.

The Swagtooths honor our profound commitment to garments & footwear that look sick as hell — in fact, many people are correctly calling these “the waviest shoes of our time.” We whipped them up in the Most-Pleasing Color Combination Out. They’re made by a deep-cut brand with a back-catalog full of funky hits. And some the most Mach 7+ clothing stores in the world f**ked with the vision in a monumental 5-way cosign.

How did we get here?

Back in Spring 2023, Erin and I were doing one of our favorite hikes in Oakland when we spotted a chill older dude rocking a gas pair of Obōz Sawtooth IIs. In subsequent weeks we kept seeing other Swag Trail Elders rocking them. Impressed, we saluted them in the newsletter.

Much to our surprise, we received a reply from Obōz letting us know that there were several Spyfriends at their Bozeman, Montana, HQ, and they were overjoyed to see their work in the Plane.

Erin and I got to talking. The Sawtooth II was ill and slept-on. A special “elevated” colorway would slap a thousandfold. Should we propose a collab?

The idea was compelling. Obōz have never done anything resembling a “fashion” collab before, so we knew this s**t would feel fresh & surprising. The Sawtooth II has wild vibey design elements, operating on its own uniquely spicy wavelength. We loved that we’d discovered it via some of the most price-aware, comfort-conscious, and naturally swaggy people on the planet: Crunchy East Bay elders.

Also? Obōz’s name, logo and general weird-biomorphic-Y2K-design energies reminded us of David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999), which was a very tight association.

“F**k it,” we said. “Let’s see if they want to cook up a Spyplane Shoe with us.”

Of course they did. We were in business.

When it came to the design, Erin and I saw a clear path to glory. For a minute now, as you might be familiar, we’ve been feeling dark purples. They play well with, and add juice to, many other colors. Especially browns, which we both love and wear lots of. We pored over color-chip combinations and selected a shade of dark purple that was rich and luminous but subtle enough that, in certain lights, it looked almost like a faded black. Obōz design wizard Otto Stefan found a Pantone match, and suggested that it would look phenomenal as an oiled suede.

We locked in some warm, loamy browns for the recycled spacer-mesh inserts and crescent-shaped leather accents that round out the upper. Two-tone laces pick up the purple & brown motif thanks to color-dipped aglets.

We saw a clear path to glory when it came to the design

To anchor it all, we chose a matte black for the signature slingback rubber heel guard and BULBOUSLY UNDULATING outsole. The results look objectively better than 99% of other products on the marketplace.

Erin and I extensively field-tested pairs of general-release Sawtooth IIs. We hiked in them. I brought them to Seoul in late-summer 2023, notching multiple 20,000+ step days during a heatwave. I got 0 (zero) blisters. Despite the waterproofing, I did not boil my dogs alive.

When the Purple Earth Swagtooth samples showed up, the field testing continued. I rocked mine for a week of stomping around NYC; then for a week in Copenhagen, where they kept me dry in an all-day torrential downpour; then for a week in Paris, where I looked very cool wearing them at highly judgmental fashion-week events; and then for a week around Greece, where there was another heatwave, and where they did me right in the triple-digit swelter as I traipsed around these Athens streets and up these rocky Hydra hillsides.

And look how beautifully they wear in!

Below left are a brand-new pair, fresh from the box, shot in the exact same sunlight as my sample pair, below right, after 5 months of rockage:

Mamma mia — the color has matured and modulated, much like with raw denim, so that the tonal-swag chromatics are only more pronounced. That’s what you get when you choose the right colors, and when you use real suede as opposed to a synthetic.

The results? Hardbody, versatile, comfortable, fit-enhancing bangers of the highest order.

The Blackbird Spyplane x Obōz Swagtooth Low Waterproof in “Purple Earth” cost $175. A huge thank you to Colbo, Neighbour, Nitty Gritty, Stand Up Comedy and Understory, whose pairs are available offline now and will be on their webshops Thursday Oct. 3. They’ll be on the Obōz site Friday Oct. 4.

Huge thanks to all the kindvibed Spyfriends in Montana at Obōz, too, with a special shout out to Otto and Dan. Huge thanks to the people in Vietnam who spent time and care making these. Huge thanks to the everlasting souls of the cows whose hides are why the shoes look and feel as good as they do. And of course, a huge thank you to all members of Spy Nation who cop these — wear them well.

Come through the launch party at Colbo in NYC this Thursday evening for wine from Zev Rovine Selections, courtesy of Obōz, & non-alcoholic beverages courtesy of Ghia.

And P☄️E☄️A☄️C🏌️E til next time!

— J & E

BTW check out the Wikipedia page for the Purple Earth Hypothesis — “an astrobiological hypothesis” which posits “that the earliest photosynthetic life forms of Early Earth were based on the simpler molecule retinal rather than the more complex porphyrin-based chlorophyll, making the surface biosphere appear purplish rather than its current greenish color… between 3.5 and 2.4 billion years ago.”