Look On My Toe Shoe Mules, Ye Mighty, and Despair
When Percy Bysshe Shelley described the terror-inducing power of pharaoh Ramesses II in Ozymandias, he may as well have been describing the backless toe shoes that Otto 958 created with Japanese footwear brand Suicoke. Perfectly analogous, really.
Otto 958, the IYKYK creative imprint overseen by UK-based designer Kiko Kostadinov and art gallery Morán Morán, produces plenty of stuff that'd pass for a fashion equivalent of an inside joke — T-shirts printed with references parseable only by the designers themselves, sweaters rebuilt as an oblique homage to Kostadinov's groundbreaking Stüssy collab — but its Suicoke toe shoe mules are a gag that anyone can get.
Except it's not really a joke. These bad boys are for real.
If you need any tangible proof that God is dead, behold. No extant deity would willingly allow its supplicants to blaspheme so aggressively, surely.
Note that Otto 958 wasn't the originator of the backless toe shoe. Suicoke deserves credit for originating the design as the NIN-SABO, as much credit as anyone deserves for slicing the heels off a pair of toe shoes.
But Otto 958 is pedestaling (really makes you think) the toe shoe mule in a way as to bring newfound attention to the traumatizing silhouette, wrapping the toe shoe in blue tones and stitching its "O" logo atop the forefoot, or whatever's left of it.
The etymology of the design is far more palatable than the shoes: Suicoke has long utilized the soles created by Italian company Vibram for its sandals and over time, Suicoke and Vibram's intimate relationship fostered experimental and eco-conscious footwear designs.
Unfortunately, that includes Vibram's Five Fingers shoe, which is really just a slipper with visible toes.
It's funny, the more I see these toe shoes, the more I'm reminded that tastes are shifting all around me. I'm as displeased by the Five Fingers now as ever but the broadening tastes of the greater fashion sphere means that more and more people see the Five Fingers not as vile but as pleasantly adventurous.
Excuse me, but I was of the impression that the fewer feet in our lives, the better.
The Five Fingers upsets this civilized instinct by reminding the viewer that there are toes hidden beneath this thin veneer of plastic and mesh. It's what makes the especially weird Suicoke toe shoes so disconcerting and, when they go the extra mile design-wise, so grotesquely fascinating.
To Otto 958's credit, the Vibram toe shoes are a massive stylistic evolution from the ASICS sneaker collaboration it rolled out last year, so no one can accuse it of playing things safe.
As for accusing it of normalizing the toe shoe, well, guilty as charged.
