Animal Collection 

Vegan shoe company Keep teams up with Animal Collective to save a small corner of the ecosystem

By Alison Baitz
Published: February 15th, 2011 | 12:00am

Collaborating with best friends for a living is a pipe dream for most young professionals. But not for Keep founder and CEO Una Kim, who is set to launch a collection of shoes designed by high-school pals who happen to be the guys behind Animal Collective. The fruit of their joint effort has culminated in four pairs of shoes (all vegan, in Keep tradition), each designed by a different member of the band on a Keep silhouette—with all proceeds benefiting the Socorro Island Conservation Fund.

Kim says that the collaboration took about a year to go from wishful thinking to colorful reality, with each member of the band getting free reign and needing minimal design direction. The guys—Avey Tare (né David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb), and Geologist (Brian Weitz)—have all been avid fans of Keep shoes since the company was founded, so designing their own pairs was a natural progression.

And they should be proud of their aesthetic achievements: Portner’s Tobin (a mid-top slip-on) is in natural canvas punctuated with fluid, ghostly drawings; Lennox’s Ramos (a mid-top with a fabric heel) features an all-over reimagined camouflage design; Dibb’s Guerra (a high-top) is all black save for vibrant fish-outline embroidery in deep hues; and Weitz’s Ramos is gray with a punch of shark-patterned fabric. “They all have their charm,” Kim says.

The running aquatic theme makes sense, as the Socorro Island Conservation Fund works to preserve the Revillagigedo Archipelago, a group of four islands just west of Mexico known for being completely pristine and teeming with exciting sea life. “We really wanted to pick a small organization where the funds wouldn’t get caught up in the administrative aspect of everything and would go to helping the cause,” says Kim. And this isn’t a one-off charity attempt from Keep; they’ve been quietly donating gear to worthy causes for some time and are next setting their sights on helping to build a skateable bowl in Mexico.

The Animal Collective-designed shoes are launching in stores worldwide starting in March 2011, but an early fall 2010 presale got came with an added bonus: Those who preordered scored a four-song cassette tape, with each track being a solo recording from each band member—a product Kim is sure will someday be the rarest artifact in the Animal Collective catalog.

To say that Kim is pleased with how the whole collaboration panned out would be an understatement. “I don’t know how it could ever get better than this,” she says of getting to work with friends while making a tangible contribution to a great cause. “That’s why we do projects like this—to keep it as ‘family’ as possible.”

For more information on the project, visit keepcompany.com/ac

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