Introducing The Rake's E-Commerce Atelier

'Why doesn't that exist?' This is the question that is the core creative impetus of the Rake Atelier, a forthcoming platform for collaboration between our editorial team and the most brilliant craftsmen, artisans, creative directors and luxury brands that populate the planet. And it is this question that compelled us to work with extraordinary British shoemakers Tony Gaziano and Dean Girling to marry an irrepressibly elegant, sculptured, countenanced, chisel-toed, wasp-waisted dress boot, with a sole we've snatched off a combat boot, creating the first form of footwear equally at home at the most elegant haute monde soirée as it is navigating the precarious shoals of a snow swept city street, a boot that is equal parts Baudelaire Flâneur as it is Nietzschean Ubermench. Moving on from there we'll unveil our collaboration with Parisian patina artist Paulus Bolten who has transformed decidedly pedestrian Adidas Stan Smiths and Nike Airforce Ones with his hand polishing skills into chromatic works of abstract expressionism that rival the paintings of Mark Rothko in their boundless emotional evocation. The boundaries for the Rake Atelier's special projects are limited only by the condition that in the process of their creation some profoundly talented human being has imparted part of his finite life energy into their birth. Moving into 2016, it gives us great pleasure to tantalize your aesthetic sensibility with the treasure trove of collaborations we've been working on for the better part of a year and that have yielded riches which will surprise you with their audacity, charm you with their wit, seduce you with their beauty and persuade you with their pragmatism. Every Rake Atelier collaboration is exclusive to The Rake, and has been commissioned in intentionally small quantities so as to doggedly militate against the increasing uniformity and ubiquity of the luxury landscape today.

The Rake's Online Atelier is available to shop now...