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The Bear is a revelation in the truest sense of the concept. It’s simultaneously tender and brutal, a vicious, visionary portrayal of intricacies of fine dining and found family, complete and direct in — hold up, is Carmy wearing Bostons?
Welcoming Back “The Bear,” a Show About Bootleg Tees
Spoiler alert: Carmy and company continue to cook with menswear gas in season two of FX’s hit seriesEagle-eyed viewers and Twitter “Yes, chef”-ers (Thread? Threaders??) are demanding answers to serious questions surrounding the origins of heartthrob Jeremy Allen-White’s season two footwear, and wouldn’t you know it, InsideHook has the answers to whether or not the staff of The Beef are all Birki-pilled.
Short answer: kinda. JAW’s Carmy — along with Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney — is, in fact, wearing a version of the shoe that has helped rocket Birkenstock’s rumored valuation to $6 billion, but it’s not the ultra-popular, oft-sold-out Boston clog. Instead, The Bear‘s footwear of choice so appears to be a black sheep of the Birki family, the Tokio.
Designed as a workman clog, the Tokio sports the same cork footbed and leather upper as the Boston, but differs predominantly and noticeably in a leather ankle backstrap that adorns the back of the shoe. There’s an additional rubber outsole —dubbed the super grip — that adds additional traction and durability for cranking out covers — just what the doctor ordered for a lightning-paced obsessive like Carm.
Unlike the FX’s series’ more fanciful sartorial pursuits — J.Crew collabs, Danish jackets, bootleg tees, what have you — this hottie chef move isn’t actually the TikTok influence-level flex it might appear to be. Clogs routinely appear in kitchens as the footwear of choice for the cheffing community, as I, an ex-Subway Sandwich Artist editor of InsideHook, can personally attest to.
Courtney Wheeler, costume designer for the majority of The Bear, confirmed that the chiller footwear choice was in no way a happy coincidence. “In the culinary world, they have great style,” Wheel told Complex Style in a recent interview. “I find that a lot of chefs do because they’re so detail-oriented. I think that’s really important to show that they do have this sense of style. We didn’t pull it out of nowhere.”
We’re all for a form-meets-function moment, and we’ve been preaching the good gospel of both clog and line cook supremacy for years now, so it’s nice to see the mulement finally start to catch on. Check out a few more clog options below to help you fully embrace your The Bear swag. Heard, chef?
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