This is our look at some of the best Dr. Martens collaborations, from Yohji Yamamoto and Joy Division to The Tate and Metallica, and why the 1460 remains one of fashion’s most adaptable shapes.
You'll have to forgive me for leaning into the obvious metaphor, but when it comes to collaborations, I can't stop myself considering the ancient philosophy that is, of course, Yin and Yang. Two opposing forces, each defined by the other, capable together of something they might not quite muster alone. Two parties with their own gravitational pull and their own loyal crowd, thrown at each other in the hope that something awe-inspiring emerges. Brand managers on both sides look on, hearts in mouths, as the hybrid creation either lights up the sky or leaves an expensive crater where the marketing budget used to be.
Now, here at good ship British Attire, we're known for having an opinion or ten on fast fashion, but hey, we're not here to tear brands down. At the end of the day, we're here to celebrate British culture, and what on earth is more British than Greggs? Back in 2022 they linked arms with another high-street name, Pri-something, you'll know the one, and produced something part hilarious, part genius. Bloody hell, did it land.
When it works, there is nothing like it. Collaboration is often how two cultures collide and end up making us wonder what life was like before they got involved with each other, which brings me nicely on to the matter at hand. Or in this case, foot! Anyone...? Ok, I'll move on.
In strides the big Dr. Dr. Martens, to be precise. No matter your walk of life, you'll know and love this globally recognisable phenom, and if there was ever a boot built to invite a collision, it's the 1460. Over the years some of the most interesting names in fashion, music and art have queued up, from designers and labels to artists, bands and way beyond. Strip away the yellow stitch and the logo and you'd still spot it a mile off, which gave us a thought. Here, we celebrate the people and the partnerships behind some of its most memorable moments, and we think you'll agree, it's been quite the line-up.
Dr. Martens x Metallica, 2026. Image courtesy of Dr. Martens.Yohji Yamamoto x Dr. Martens, 2007
Dr. Martens' first proper collaborator was Yohji Yamamoto, and if that name doesn't mean much, it’s definitely a you problem. Widely regarded as one of the most important fashion designers of the last half-century, this Tokyo-born / Paris-based figure, alongside Rei Kawakubo, detonated the European fashion establishment when he showed in Paris in 1981. The collections were oversized, asymmetric, full of holes and frayed edges, and almost entirely black. The French press were so scandalised they bravely labelled it "Hiroshima chic." He dressed everyone from Pina Bausch's dancers to Wim Wenders' films, and built the Y-3 line with adidas that put high fashion and sportswear in the same sentence for the first time.
Yamamoto designs around wabi-sabi, the Japanese love of things that are imperfect, worn and a bit battered. His actual words: "I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion." He makes clothes built to age with the wearer, that crease and fade and show off the history. This, of course, suits DMs down to the ground. They're not exactly bought to be babied, are they? Yes, they'll rub you raw at the heel, but once broken in they'll look unstoppable for as long as you need them to be exactly that.
Despite all the fanfare, the collaboration was pretty understated. The first boot in 2007, simply added a side zip to the 1460, because he was sick of fighting the laces. One of the boldest designers alive got his hands on a design icon and all he could think to do was fix something mildly annoying, which to us says a lot about the original silhouette.
Yohji 1981: Yohji Yamamoto, Paris, 1981. The collection that changed everything.Joy Division, New Order and Dr. Martens, 2018
In June 2018 the boot decorated itself in genius, as is often the case when Mancunians enter the conversation. Rewinding just a little, Joy Division formed in Manchester's city within a city, Salford, back in 1976. Their music turned the grey of the post-industrial city into something you might call even more haunting. Following lead singer Ian Curtis's death in 1980, the band rebranded, becoming New Order, who would later go on to invent dance music, fill the Haçienda every weekend and rewire pop culture for the next decade. Running in complete parallel, Manchester-born designer Peter Saville was turning record covers into fine art and giving the whole scene its austere, unmistakable appearance.
We'll admit a bit of bias here. Being a northern outfit ourselves, there's a particular pride we take in discussing the way this corner of the country has shaped British culture, and these two bands and their designer are about as good as it gets.
So, on to the boots. Dr. Martens turned three of the most famous Saville sleeves in British history into 1460s, working hand-in-hand with the man himself. Unknown Pleasures carried Joy Division's pulsar waveform, embossed black-on-black. Power, Corruption and Lies printed Fantin-Latour's roses onto crackle-finished suede, allowing the leather to behave like the surface of an old oil painting. Technique went unapologetically loud with the cherub and a wash of colour.
Any music aficionado will tell you that album art meaning everything to a few million people is a dangerous thing to bolt onto a product, and other attempts have found that out the hard way, (we'll not mention any names). To the credit of the team at Dr. Martens, they handed creative control to Saville, inviting a true partnership. Importantly, the collab just made sense. It was easy to understand and already felt familiar, which at the end of the day, is the whole point.
Joy Division: Joy Division, Manchester, 1979. © Kevin CumminsDr. Martens 1460 Remastered, 2020
For the boot's sixtieth birthday in 2020, they did something you’d not be stopped for calling unhinged, even for them. Rather than settle for marking the occasion with a single grand gesture, they laced up twelve in a row, capping production at 1,460 pairs each. Clever stuff. As for the roster, here it is in order: A Bathing Ape, Raf Simons, BEAMS × Babylon, Yohji Yamamoto, UNDERCOVER, A-COLD-WALL*, Needles, Pleasures, Marc Jacobs, Medicom Toy, WTAPS and mastermind WORLD.
The guest list was one thing, I mean how impressive (expensive) is that, but the format was nothing short of ground-breaking. A year-long celebration, the same fixed object washed with twelve restless minds. Raf Simons threaded his with punk nickel rings borrowed from late-seventies clubland and his own past in furniture design. WTAPS ripped out the laces, fitted military buckles and bolted on a steel toe. Marc Jacobs hung his with gold trinkets, keys and dice, nodding at the grunge collection he showed at Perry Ellis in 1993, you know, the one that got him fired. Twelve collisions, twelve sides of the dice, one single boot. There are perhaps four or five shapes in fashion's entire archive that could withstand that and stay themselves. The 1460 is one of them.
Raf Simons: Raf Simons archive. Unknown Pleasures parka on the right.Tate x Ithell Colquhoun x Dr. Martens, 2023
In September 2023, Dr. Martens reached past the obvious to produce something a little more refined, dare I say, inspired. The Tate collaboration put the work of Ithell Colquhoun onto two 1460s, with a backpack to match. Now here's the thing about Colquhoun, she was what I’d call a very real surrealist, for want of a better phrase, who didn't just dabble in the mystical for fun. A practising occultist who belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's offshoots, the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Fellowship of Isis, she took magic so seriously that when the British Surrealist Group told her in 1940 to choose between her art movement and her occult societies, she pulled off the best disappearing act of all time and vanished into thin air. She spent her later decades more or less off-grid in Cornwall, painting, writing about ritual, and producing images by pressing wet paint between surfaces and reading whatever the unconscious coughed up, a technique she called decalcomania. Volcanic Flare, one of the two works Dr. Martens chose, looks exactly like its name: molten, organic, slightly unnerving. It certainly feels like it belongs on the 1460 though, that's for sure. Put that image on a trainer and it's nothing more than a pattern, but on the 1460 it lands in a whole other way.
For sixty-five years this boot has been the unofficial uniform of the arty outsider, those who decide to take the strange with a slightly smaller pinch of salt. In fact, the exact crowd who would have known all about Colquhoun decades before the Tate got round to giving her a retrospective in 2025, which to us, makes this feel less like a collaboration and more like a homecoming.
Ithell Colquhoun, Elemental, 1971 - Decalcomania Technique
Colquhoun Scylla: Scylla, 1938. Colquhoun at her most quietly unsettling.Metallica x Dr. Martens, 2026
Right then, time to wrap this up, and where better than the most natural place of all, the modern day. In January 2026 Dr. Martens and Metallica put out three boots, and the artwork came from a man you might not have heard of but whose work you'll know instantly. The infamous and almighty, Pushead.
Brian Schroeder, as he's less commonly known, is a genuine underground legend. He fronted the hardcore band Septic Death, wrote the cult Puszone column for Thrasher magazine, and drew the gruesome skulls and skeletons that became the visual language of 80s skate culture through his decks for Zorlac. For Metallica he's far more than just some hired gun. He illustrated the interior of ...And Justice for All, painted the St. Anger cover, and has been responsible for the band's most collected merch and tour art for the best part of forty years. When Metallica need something drawing, he’s the man who gets the call.
The collaboration runs across two shapes. The 1460 carries his work from the 1988 Damaged Justice tour. The 1461 shoe showcases two pieces, his art from the 1986 Damage Inc. tour, and a black-on-black Metallica.com exclusive aligned with the Black Album, finished with dog tags, an M-stamped heel and "5th Member" across the back. The spare laces read "Boredom comes from a boring mind."
Dr. Martens x Metallica, 2026. Image courtesy of Dr. Martens.This is the part where we'd usually finish on a neat little quip, wrap it in a bow and drop the mic in some way or another. But not this time, because somewhere, at this very moment, there's a designer staring at a blank 1460, wondering what they can get away with.
This story is a long way from being over...