Shoe fetish has been around for a long time, since well before the 1970’s. But in the past three or four years the bespoke approach to sneakers has taken off. Following the success of platform toys, shoe companies have seen the customization of sneakers come out of the woodwork and into the spotlight.
It’s gotten to the point now that both Vans and Adidas are trying to take this phenomenon as far as they can. Adidas launched Adicolor, an effort to push the public into using the staple Adidas Originals Superstar shoe at a platform design. It’s been extremely successful and some really amazing shoes have come out of it. Adidas stages a design competition where the winners shoe would go into production. I think we’ll see Adidas do some over the top crazy stuff in the near future. See the seven Adicolor videos here; Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Pink, Black and White.
Above are two of the kits that Adidas produced to spur us all to express ourselves in our shoes. Below is a photo from a Sneaker exhibition in Taiwan.
While these platform shoes are really popular now, this is not the first time that customized sneakers where en vogue. When I was in highschool, around 1986 you could go to a Vans shop and get completely customized high or low tops, and they had more options then than they do today! Time to step it up Vans.
But it’s not just Nike, Adidas and Vans that are getting into the platform design groove. There are many more small boutique shops that are doing really brilliant work. Shops like Five Three Footwear, Your Kicks and Choose your shoes are all doing interesting work. There’s only more to come, because sneakers have universal.
We’d like to see some of the smaller shoe companies do some really inspiring platform designs. Companies like Onitsuka Tiger and Madfoot.
Sneaker pimps (not the band) among others stage gallery type exhibitions for custom sneakers that are really the best of the best. You can find one of these exhibition in most major cities around the world.
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