CDFA just awarded him the Accessory Designer of the Year prize for it. His clothes—genderless and retro and experimental at once—are worn by everyone from playwright Jeremy O. Harris to hip-hop star Swae Lee. (When both a red-hot rapper and an award-winning writer are wearing your label, you’re doing something right.) Now, the designer is bringing his signature touch to a new partnership with Ugg. Yes, that Ugg, the one that makes the fuzzy, fleece-y footwear that dominated the aughts.

Ugg has been on a bit of an upswing within fashion circles. The brand has recently tapped buzzed-about labels like Eckhaus Latta and Heron Preston to inject the brand with a sharp sense of cool. Clemens has a unique history with the brand, too. The designer has sent unofficial, unauthorized Telfar-Ugg boots down the runway at multiple shows of his. Now, the partnership makes things official. “I find Ugg really sexy—a soft kind of rugged,” Clemens says in the press release. 

Hearing the one-of-one designer phrase it like that,  it becomes clear how natural a partnership between the two brands feels. Telfar clothes and accessories have always had a soft-yet-rugged feeling, sharp but wearable. That aesthetic seems like it will naturally translate to his future work with Ugg. While no Telfar x Ugg designs have been revealed just yet, the partnership will include footwear, apparel, and accessories. It will launch in the fall of 2021.

Clemens will have his work cut out for him, though. Despite waves of normcore-ish, functional style and eccentric footwear, wearing Uggs is still widely seen as a no-go. The lounge footwear has yet to infiltrate men’s fashion with the same popularity of dad sneakers or high-tech-looking sandals. Ugg is betting that a designer like Clemens can help bring the brand closer to the center of new American fashion. And judging from the year Clemens is having, it sounds like a pretty safe bet.