Once the default footwear of youth counterculture, Dr. Martens were beloved by disparate tribes of outsiders, from skinheads to punks to grunge loving coffee shop employees from Seattle. In the early 1990s, the brand went from underground to ubiquitous in shockingly short order before disappearing in a blaze of irrelevance as they abandoned their core design styles and color palette in an attempt to cement their mass appeal.

For the past several years, DM's have been working to muster a comeback, collaborating with a number of underground players, from the roving Vacant guerilla retail experiment, to punk rock fashion designer Keenan Dufty. The results are mixed to be sure, but with stylish celebrities like Bam Margera and the Futureheads all donning DMs in recent press photos and uber-fashionable shops like NYC's Nom De Guerre dressing its mannequins in 10-hole combats (oxblood no less!), perhaps all the effort is starting to pay off.

Just to be sure, Dr Martens are launching Freedm2, a program of limited-attendance music events to be held in Camden's famed Roundhouse, which has added a special 120 seat Freedm room especially for this series. The first event is on September 29 featuring a live performance by dance music stalwarts Xpress 2, a DJ set from Bloc Party as well as performances by Killa Kella, Eclectic Method, Grandad Bob and even a special Stick It On-BYO Records set wherein attendees can all have a go at DJing.

While this London-centric event will obviously do little to resuscitate DMs fortunes in the States, it will be interesting to see if a new generation of hipsters will respond to this obviously concerted attempt at relevancy. In the absence of much of the mod and punk sensibility that initially propelled Dr Martens out of the orthopedic workboot category, is there really an interest in utilitarian chic in today's fashion universe? We shall see.

It appears you don't have Flash installed.