Denim Tears has collaborated more than most people realize, and the projects vary far more in substance than a list of logos suggests. Some were full seasonal collections with a documented research basis. One was a set of wallets. Nine are ranked below, in order of how much each project actually carried rather than how much resale attention it got, with the smaller and more recent releases covered after them. Every entry was checked against reporting from Hypebeast, WWD, Highsnobiety, Dazed and the brands themselves rather than against resale listings.
How This Ranking Works
Three things decide the order. First, whether the collaboration had a subject beyond the logo pairing, since the entire premise of the label is that the clothing is carrying a story. Second, how much of the partner brand’s own identity the project used, because a collaboration that could have been made with anybody is a weaker piece of work. Third, whether it still reads well now rather than only at launch.
What deliberately doesn’t count is resale value. Prices in this niche move with size, colorway, condition and whatever went viral last month, and ranking by them would produce a different list every quarter.
The Three That Built the Brand
1. Levi’s, from January 2020
The one everything else grew out of. The first capsule paired a Levi’s trucker jacket, 501 jeans and a plantation hat, all built from vintage denim so that no new cotton went into the collection, and all carrying the cotton wreath print. Emory has said he came across the wreath motif through the artist Kara Walker’s Instagram, and turned it into what functions as the label’s logo. The subject was cotton itself and its place in American slavery, which is about as far from a standard denim collab brief as it gets.
It worked well enough that Levi’s signed a multi-year partnership in 2021, and the collection was included in The Met’s 2021 exhibition In America: A Lexicon of Fashion. Later seasons kept going, with the fourth collection honoring New Orleans and the Black Masking Indian tradition in March 2025. If you buy one Denim Tears collaboration piece, the argument for this being it isn’t nostalgia. It’s that the whole brand is downstream of it.
2. Dior, Fall 2023
Dior Tears, made with Kim Jones, presented in Cairo alongside the Dior Men Pre-Fall 2023 show near the Pyramids. The collection ran on a specific idea rather than a mood: the arrival of African American jazz musicians in Paris, and figures like James Baldwin and Miles Davis being celebrated in Europe while segregation continued at home. Dior described it as a dialogue between New York, New Orleans and Paris.
This is the project that moved Emory from streetwear collaborator to someone a French luxury house builds a show around. The footwear was capped at 470 pairs per colorway and sold through temporary pop-ups, which is why it’s the hardest entry on this list to find at anything sensible now.
3. Converse Chuck 70, October 2020
A high and a low Chuck 70 carrying the Pan African flag, with black and red stripes across the canvas and green tongues studded with black stars. It launched on denimtears.com on October 22, 2020, and went global through Converse a week later.
What lifts it above a good-looking sneaker is what was attached. The release was timed to the November 2020 US presidential election as part of a push around civic participation among young Black creatives, and all proceeds from sales through denimtears.com went to For Freedoms and Black Voters Matter. A collaboration that gives away its own revenue is rare enough to be worth noting.
The Three Built Around Something Personal
4. UGG, Spring/Summer 2022
The Onia Tasman, released February 1, 2022 at $475, in suede and sheepskin with floral decoration and whipstitching around the collar. The subject was Emory’s Black Seminole heritage, and it came with a 60-minute documentary shot around his roots in New Orleans featuring Big Chief Demond Melancon and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. UGG donated $50,000 to the Backstreet Cultural Museum and the Guardians Institute alongside it.
It also happens to be the entry that aged best commercially. UGG’s Tasman became a mainstream staple in the years after, which makes a 2022 Denim Tears version look considerably more prescient now than it did at release.
5. ASICS GEL-MC Plus, September 2021
Two colorways, Brick and Cream, on an archival ASICS runner, built around the red clay roads of Harlem, Georgia where Emory played as a child. The accompanying text came from his father recalling washing that clay off his hands, and noted that Emory’s grandfather and uncle used the same clay to make fire bricks and water pipes. It launched through Denim Tears on September 28, 2021, and globally in October.
The reason it sits here rather than higher is reach. It’s a quiet, personal project on a silhouette most people weren’t looking for, which is exactly what makes it good and also what kept it small.
6. Champion Tears, October 2021
Launched October 26, 2021, the collection drew on Alvin Ailey and the dance heritage around him, and ran across collegiate sweatsuits, sweatshirts, tees, crochet knitwear and hats, with Pan African red, green and black running through the knits, the hoodies and Champion’s own logo.
This is the most wearable entry on the list and the most under-discussed. Champion’s collegiate vocabulary genuinely suited the subject, and the crochet pieces were doing something neither brand did on its own.
Streetwear, Accessories and Retail
7. Stüssy, Spring/Summer 2025
A 17-piece capsule released in February 2025, built around Emory’s high school years in Jamaica, Queens. Two labels with genuinely overlapping histories rather than a marketing pairing, which is why it read as natural. New Stüssy Tears editions turned up again inside the Fall/Winter 2026 collection.
8. Comme des Garçons, April 2024
Worth being precise about this one, because it’s often listed as though it were a clothing collection. It was wallets. Comme des Garçons’ heritage wallet shapes with embossed gold CDG lettering, carrying the cotton wreath, Union Black and Pan African flags and a watermelon graphic first seen in the Spring/Summer 2024 Kiss My Grits collection. Released April 19, 2024 through Denim Tears, African Diaspora Goods and Dover Street Market, with A$AP Nast fronting the campaign. A good object, a small project.
9. Dover Street Market, from 2020
More retail partnership than collaboration, but it produced product, including the Year of the Rat hoodie and tee in Spring/Summer 2020 and a later rhinestone capsule. DSM was where the label first moved into physical retail, and it still carries the brand across its London, Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo floors.
Everything Else Worth Knowing
The list runs longer than the ranked entries above. Offset released a collaboration with the label in September 2023. Marc Jacobs gave its tote a Denim Tears treatment in October 2024. There was a project with Hardies in autumn 2025 and a Corteiz capsule that landed on Christmas Day 2025, plus a Tears Tote with Skepta.
The current one is the Fall/Winter 2026 collection made with the André Leon Talley Estate, which folds in Billionaire Boys Club and NAACP pieces and new Stüssy Tears editions across five drops. It’s large enough and recent enough to need its own breakdown, so we covered the drops, the pricing and what’s still to come separately.
Which Ones Are Actually Worth Buying Now
If you want the idea the brand is built on, the Levi’s cotton wreath denim is the one, and it is the easiest of the ranked entries to still find. If you want something you will wear weekly rather than store, the Champion and Stüssy pieces are the practical picks and tend to sit lower than the sneaker collaborations. The Dior and Converse releases are collector territory now, priced accordingly and worth authenticating rather than trusting.
One caution applies across this whole category. Collaboration pieces are among the most faked parts of the brand, because a partner logo raises the value without raising the difficulty of printing it. Older releases also mean fewer reference photos to compare against. Before buying any of these secondhand, run the checks in our guide to telling a real Denim Tears piece from a fake, and if the piece is expensive enough to hurt, our photo authentication runs $15 with a verdict in 24 to 48 hours.
FAQ
What was the first Denim Tears collaboration?
Levi’s, in January 2020. The capsule used vintage denim for a trucker jacket, 501 jeans and a plantation hat, all printed with the cotton wreath. It led to a multi-year partnership announced in 2021 and to the collection appearing in The Met’s In America: A Lexicon of Fashion that same year.
Did Denim Tears really work with Dior?
Yes. The collection was called Dior Tears, made with Kim Jones for Dior Men and shown in Cairo for Fall 2023. It’s well documented by WWD and Hypebeast among others. Footwear was limited to 470 pairs per colorway, so anything offered today in unlimited sizes deserves scrutiny.
Is the Comme des Garçons collaboration a clothing line?
No. It was a wallet collection released in April 2024, using Comme des Garçons’ own leather wallet shapes with Denim Tears graphics. Listings describing it as a Comme des Garçons Denim Tears hoodie or tee are describing something that doesn’t exist as an official release.
Which Denim Tears collaboration is hardest to find?
The Dior Tears footwear, given the 470 pairs per colorway cap and pop-up-only distribution. The 2020 Converse Chuck 70 is also long gone at retail. Availability on both now depends entirely on resale, where condition and size drive price more than the collaboration name does.
