Keen is teaming up with designer Philéo Landowski to illuminate the brand’s unique hybrid footwear DNA.
The Portland-based brand announced Wednesday the beginning of a multiseason partnership with the 23-year-old Parisian described as “reimagining outdoor functionality through a fashion lens.”
For Keen’s chief marketing officer Nicks Ericsson, “originality has always been at the core of Keen. We’ve never tried to be anything other than who we are,” he told Footwear News. “What makes our partnership with Philéo so meaningful is a shared respect for that identity, and a mutual commitment to honoring craft.”
Early conversations revealed “a natural alignment in how we think about design, materials, manufacturing and, most importantly, purpose,” Ericsson continued. “At the heart of it, we’re both driven by the same goal: to create unique, purposeful product in the most conscious way possible.”
Landowski, who won FN’s 2024 Emerging Talent Award, described their collaboration as “logical” and stemming in the shared language of shoemaking “but with different accents.”
“At first, I saw Keen almost as a functional outlier, very specific, slightly outside of the usual sneaker landscape,” he said. “But the deeper I went into the brand, the more I realized the density of what they had built, [with] a large number of constructions and design approaches that aren’t immediately visible. I started seeing Keen more as a system.”
This is best exemplified in the first shoe to emerge from the partnership.
Dubbed the Targher Phileo, it is a mash-up of Keen’s Targhee hiking boot and Jasper sneaker with inside-out detailing meant to “celebrate the functional side of footwear” by hinting at the complexity of construction through details such as exposed heel counters and leaving the backside of leather visible on the tongue.
Priced at $190, the limited-edition Targher shoe will be available starting Friday at the Phileo flagship in Paris, Dover Street Market locations in Paris and New York as well as a selection of retailers. It will also launch on both footwear brands’ websites.
Ericsson said this was “just the beginning” and the pair would explore “the depth of Keen’s archive, pulling from different categories and silhouettes, to evolve what the brand can be for a new generation of creators and cultural curators — whether it’s lace-ups, slip-ons, sandals or utility boots.”
Landowski, who cut his teeth at Céline as a teenager and launched his brand in 2019, has collaborated with the likes of Adidas and Comme des Garçons. He also worked as creative consultant for French outdoor specialist Salomon between 2021 and 2024.