I Hate My Feet | by Antonio Piepo

Faculty of Design and Art Free University of Bozen - Bolzano Book Design: Antonio Piepo Paper: Hello Silk 180/250 gr Typeface: Proxima Nova Futura Bold Condensed Oblique Summer Semester 2018 Prof. Antonino Benincasa

Sneakers, kicks, trainers, joints, runners, creps, or just regular-as shoes; sneakers to me are something really important and personal, as I tend to base everything I wear or do on my shoes. I’ve always hated my feet, maybe not just mine, but feet in general; I find them gross, therefore I like covering them up with good-looking foot wear. I can perfectly remember when I first matched my entire outfit with the shoes I was wearing, or rather the sandals I was wearing (that’s the German side in me…), which were army green with little neon-orange details. I matched them with socks shorts and a shirt that were exactly the same tone of green. The zips of the shorts were in the same orange as the details on the sandals. I have no idea why I remember that day so well, because as far as I know I was seven years old at the time, yet it is a memory that will stick with me all my life. It was the first time that I consciously matched my shoes with the rest of my ensemble. I can remember most of the shoes I owned ever since that day, like my first pair of skate shoes, the Etnies Sal Barbier 23 in navy blue with a gum sole and white laces. I remember never wanting to take them off and my parents had to force me to throw them away when they were too messed up to be worn, the same thing goes for the Nike SB Paul Rodriguez 2 in orange and royal blue. I recall buying them back in 2008 and not even wanting to skate them as I thought they were to pretty to be destroyed within a few weeks. The memories go on and on… I could tell you hundreds and hundreds of stories and experiences which I had in my sneakers, as a matter of fact, this is what I am going to do: this book is a little diary of my dedication and love for kicks that I have developed throughout the past 15 years. These are the memoirs of my beloved shoes.

In 2011 my father flew to the USA for work related reasons. When he came back he brought two pairs of Nike Air Jordan X AutoClave, on in all red for me, and one in black and red, for my little brother.

These joints are statement shoes in my opinion, as the bright red really seeks for attention. Since they are so strong and bold, I barely ever wore them; I still do not wear them that much. I still like them a lot though. Out of all Air Jordan models ever made I only really like the AJ I, IV, and XI, yet this silhouette of the X has grown on me over the past few years. Recently I put the AutoClaves on again as I was feeling the red of shoes that day. I went to uni, did nothing special, but in the afternoon I decided to go to the skatepark and say hi to my homies. I chatted for a little and hung out, until I could not stop myself anymore to feed my urge to go skate. At first I did not know whether I should go home and change shoes or just skate in the Jordans. In the end I just kept them on and skated them. Although they are supposed to be basketball shoes, they were surprisingly comfortable and easy to skate with. This model is a little different compared to the normal Air Jodan X, as it has a vulcanized sole, which is also thinner compared to the OG one. This probably explains why they are so comfortable to skate in. I continued skating for an hour or so and then went home. To my surprise, I was not bothered by the fact that I had just skated a pair of my more expensive collection; in fact it felt pretty good.

This experience made me want to start skating more Jordans to see if they are all that comfortable to skate in.

When I turned fifteen my family and I moved from Germany to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. After living there for a year, we went back to Germany to visit friends and family. That year a new sneaker boutique called AMEN opened up in Munich (my hometown). A couple of weeks before summer break I discovered their website, where I found a pair of shoes that was going to release the week I got back to Munich. I wrote them an email asking them if they could reserve a pair for me and indeed, they did. It was a pair of Ellesse Alex Nash N117 limited editon, in two colour ways, one in beige and brown and the other, which was the one I wanted, turquoise and royal blue. (Alex Nash aka NashMoney is a British shoe collector and customizer, who also had collaborations with Footlocker and DCSHOESUSA. He is known for crossing formal and casual footwear to create something that has never been seen before. In this case a boat shoe with the classic Italian Elless 117 trainer.) They responded a couple of days later and told me that they would hold back a pair in my size. Being the fanatic that I am, as soon as I landed in Munich went to AMEN to pick up my shoes. I still had my luggage with me when picked up my new Ellesses. I was so excited when I got them; I even bought a baseball undershirt (the shirts with the ¾ sleeves that are in a different colour), in the same blue to match the shoes. For the rest of hat summer I wore that pair of trainers every other day, always trying to match them differently. When I got back to Dubai I put them back in their box and for some reason they stayed in there for a couple of months, I ignored them, it was like a hate/love type situation. For some reason I did not want to be seen in them, yet every time I looked at them I felt empathy and interest in wearing them again. Then as soon as I was to throw them on, the feeling faded and had no courage to wear them at all. Ever since then, sadly I’ve only worn them a couple of times, which does not mean that I don’t like them anymore.

Back in high school when I was around sixteen years old, ODD FUTURE, a music group I enjoyed was becoming bigger and bigger. That year, 2013 they had released their first shoe in collaboration with Vans SYNDICATE. Since Tyler, the Creator was one of my rappers at the time, who also had a lot of influence on how I dressed; I had to get these shoes. Living in Dubai made it really hard to get a hold of these shoes, as they were only sold at selected stores around he world. I will get back to that later. Soon enough I gave up on trying to get them, as it seemed impossible… Towards the end of the school year I started hanging out with some girls who were seniors at my school.

After a while I went out with one of them and a few weeks later we started dating. As soon as she graduated she moved back to her parents in her home country, Sweden (she lived with a friend in Dubai without her parents). Of course I had to visit her, so I did. I stayed in Dubai for half of the summer to work to earn the money to fly out to Sweden. With the money I earned, I bought the flight to Sweden, and I still had enough cash left to spend on food and shopping when in Sweden. When I got there she and her family welcomed me warmly, and they seemed to like me right away.

For the first couple of days everything was great, they showed me around Sweden took me to restaurants and we even threw a party at their house.

The day of the party already started of weird; I had a strange feeling that something was going to happen, something strange or unexpected.

And indeed, it did, she broke up with me out of the blue, for no particular reason either. I was shocked and did not know what to do, I was stuck in a country where the only people I knew did not want to see me anymore.

It was awful since I had to stay there for another 10 days. I spent most of my time with her family and tried to be as normal as possible. Her family was nice enough to still take me around and show me their favourite places in Sweden. On my last day we went to Stockholm so I could take the plane from there the next day, as they lived further up north in Sweden. We walked around the city and checked out a few art galleries, after that we went shopping. I hadn’t spent any money, because I feel like her parents felt bad for me, so they paid for everything throughout my stay. I had all the money left that I earned during the summer, and being the heartbroken confused teenager I was, I was also willing to spend it all in one day. In the downtown area of Stockholm I found many street wear shops in which I bought a lot of clothes. When I had spent almost all of my cash I randomly found a tiny hidden store in a little alley. When I walked in I felt like I was in heaven, they had all the collections of the ODD FUTURE clothing at the time. The owner noticed that I was interested in their clothes and asked me if I wanted to see something cool.

Of course I did, so he took me downstairs to the storage room, which was full of the Vans Syndicate GOLF WANG in all four colour ways. He told me that he received so many pairs of them he didn’t know what to do with them anymore so he sold them to me for half price. I could not believe that I had found the shoes that I had given up on a couple of months previously of my holiday. Maybe he knew that he would fix my broken heart a little bit, when he showed and sold me the shoes.

This might sound dumb, but sometimes something as simple as a shoe, can help one get over a break up.

In my senior year in high school I took art as a higher-level class. It was really challenging for me, because on one side think of myself as a creative person yet I suck at making “art”. I had a job as a skateboard teacher at an art gallery with a skatepark/bowl in the backyard. That way I was constantly surrounded by art, which would help me get inspired to create something I could like. In senior year we were allowed to make what ever we wanted for art class, so we didn’t necessarily have to paint or draw things. At work I got to know a couple of artists who worked with graffiti; and recently at that time I had found out about KRINK INK (a brand that makes markers and spray-paint that has a different water content so it runs and drips). I was inspired to make art with spray-paint, but not graffiti.

I wanted to use the paint in a different way. I could not get any KRINK INK in Dubai so I had to find another way to make paint splashes that look unintentional.

The graffiti artist at the gallery always had their shoes covered in spray-paint; I thought that looked pretty cool. Then I came up with the idea of making a new shoe with pain splashes on it. Yet with all the details, sole, tongue and laces would be clean. I had to try out different techniques of creating the splashes that I wanted. The best one was to put on latex gloves, spraying tons of paint onto the hands and then with a throwing motion splashing the paint on the desired object.

In this case it was a pair of Nike AirForce 1 Mid’s in white with a silver Swoosh. A good friend of mine had given them to me as a present, but I had only worn them once because I did not like them that much. They looked to boring. I took out the laces and taped up all the details of the shoe including the Swoosh and the sole.

Then I used the technique that I had tried out earlier splashed my two favourite colours at the time, royal blue and orange on top of the shoes. I repeated that process a couple of times and then I let them dry. When they had dried up I took of the tape and laced them up again, coming out with a pretty spectacular result.

My teacher was not really convinced, that my shoes were not a real work of art… so she gave me a low grade for them. Maybe she was right, maybe not.

I nearly forgot about one of the most important pairs of shoes that I own. Not because of their looks, as they really aren’t that special but rather because of the sentimental worth that they have to me. The Vans Old Skool out of the SnakeskinPack that Vans had released in 2014. These shoes have travelled around the world quite a lot. I bought them at Level Shoe District, a shoe store that specifies in luxury shoes and sneakers in Dubai. It was a few days before going to Norway that winter and as ignorant as I was, I thought a pair of simple leather kicks would get me through the cold. As a matter of as soon as I got there I realized I messed up… When we arrived in Oslo it was a bit chilly, - 15° c to be exact. I had brought the wrong shoes only because I hadn’t felt a real winter in a couple of years and I thought I didn’t need to wear boots, also I wanted to look fresh rather than wearing big boots that are uncomfortable and heavy. I stayed there for two weeks wearing the shoes almost every day, just because I was too ashamed to ask the family that I was staying with for boots. Half a year later I graduated from high school. To celebrate our graduation my two best friends and I wanted to go on a Euro trip traveling from one country to another by train. In the end it turned out to be way cheaper to fly from one place to another so we decided to do that. First we stayed with my parents in Italy at our summerhouse. From there we took off to fly to Amsterdam. Since we lived pretty much drug free except for alcohol, growing up in Dubai, we wanted the full WEED experience…

That time of the year was the perfect time to wear my Snakeskin OldSkools, which in fact I pretty much wore throughout the whole trip.We stayed in Amsterdam for 5 days, and at the end we had spent nearly all of the money that was supposed to last for the entire vacation. Our next destination was London, which then turned out to be our last one too. We stayed at my friend’s grandparent’s house for 5 days. We barely did anything, since we had no money, and London is damn expensive. So that was it, our Eurotrip turned out to be just three different countries, of which we could only really enjoy two. Regardless of that, I think we can all agree that we had the time of our lives in Amsterdam and it was worth blowing all our money within the first couple of days.Ever since that trip, this pair of skate shoes has come with me almost everywhere I went around the planet. That’s what makes them so special to me.

This story is not directly about a pair of my own sneakers. It is about a pair that as always been in the family closet, yet I was never allowed to wear them. I am talking about my dad’s Nike Air BigWindow Generation II’s in navy blue. He bought them back in 2010 and still wears them regularly (my dad also has a little shoe addiction). I think I inherited my passion for clothes in general from my parents.Anyways, when he bought them I was extremely jealous, but he would not even let me try them on. After a while I sort of forgot about them and in the meanwhile I built my own collection.

Later when my family and I moved to Dubai I met my best friend Connor.

We’ve always had similar interests, yet I think I had a great influence on the way he dressed. We started collecting sneakers together and gifted each other pairs every now and then (he gave the AirForce 1 mid’s to me). I even gave him my silver Nike AirMax 1 AirAttacks; it was a good friendship.One day he came over to my house and saw my parents shoe closet; the first thing he saw were my dads Air BW GN II’s. Right away he asked if they were mine, but since they weren’t they were pretty much untouchable.Later that day my dad came home and Connor went up to him to ask if he could buy his sneakers. My dad obviously declined. We kept begging for days, but nothing, my dad stood his ground. After a while we gave up on them, as we did not see a happy ending to this story.

I eventually forgot about them again… Recently my dad found out that I was writing the zine that you are reading at the moment. A couple of days later he gave me the shoes, but only so I could take photos of them and to tell this story.To this day I think they are his favourite pair of shoe, otherwise he would have bend in at some point. Well, we can’t always have everything we desire; yet we should always appreciate everything we have.

My first job was selling board shorts at a surf shop in Dubai. I got along pretty well with the guys who worked there. My boss was this cool English guy, Simon, with a huge ginger beard and a passion for Sandboarding. He had been designing them for a while and was planning to open up his own brand. A year later they closed down the shop, because the owners wanted to continue different careers.

I stayed in contact with Simon and went skating and paddle boarding with him every now and then. When he opened up ABOVE Sandboards he asked me if I wanted to help him test the boards. We went to the desert with another couple of friends to try the new boards on different sand dunes in the desert. All in all we had great times together, and we formed a nice friendship even though he is a lot older than me. Later on we found out we both had a passion for shoes and he invited me over to see his collection. His loft was full with box upon boxes of sneakers. Simon was an ambassador for PUMA shoes. Towards the end of my time staying in Dubai he was going to introduce me to the Puma Middle East managing team so I could learn more about sneakers and the brand. Unfortunately we never had time to do so. One after noon just a few days before I had to move back to Europe he called me and invited me over to say good-bye. At his place we chatted for while talking about our future plans. Out of nothing he pulled out a box and put it in my hands. I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do with them, so I just looked at them and gave them back to him. He handed them back to me and said that they were a gift for me, so I could remember our friendship. It was a pair of PUMA R968 x BWGH in light grey and light blue shoelaces. With this pair he introduced me to a silhouette that I had not seen before.

I was never really into Puma as I thought they only make the classic b-boy Puma suede shoes. Yet these showed me the brand from a whole other perspective. I found out about the Blaze of Glory’s, and the discs, all shoes that were completely new to me. The R968 Simon gifted to me were also the shoes I wore on my first day of university which was the first day to a new chapter in my life.

Back in 2014 the skate/street wear brand Supreme released their first ever full-length skate video, called cherry. Many of my favourite skaters ride for that brand, which got me very excited to see the movie when it came out. One of these guys was Dylan Rieder, the best looking and probably one of the most stylish guys to ever step foot on a skateboard. Many of my skater friends including myself wanted to skate like him. He just looked so cool and relaxed on a board, wearing tight slacks that would end right above the ankles, with a white tank top tucked into the pants.

His choice in shoes was so unique most people would not even want to buy his pro-model as they did not look anything like skate shoes. He always like the way dress shoes looked on him and he wanted to create a pair of shoes that was skateable yet looked like he could wear them to a suit at the same time. His first ever shoe pro-model was with Gravis at the time, a simple skinny dress shoe without laces that came in burgundy or black. The sales of that shoe weren’t that great, because nobody wanted to skate a shoe like that, for most skaters it was too skinny and the sole was too thin. Soon after that, Gravis closed down their production line and that brand was officially over (now they exist again but with limited products in Japan).In 2014 he was picked up to by HUF to rider their shoes.

This time they looked similar to the ones that he designed together with analogue but they had more of a skate vibe to them. A year into his deal with HUF there was no new footage of him skating and generally speaking there was hardly anything to be seen of him. On October 12th 2016 Dylan Rieder passed away due to complications with leukaemia. I could not believe the news when I heard them. One of my biggest idols in skating, poof, gone. A few weeks later, my dad took my brother and I to a big skateboard warehouse sale near Verona. I browsed through the endless piles of shoes and clothes, when I saw a white shoe that peaked right into my eyes. It was a sample of the first model Dylan and HUF had designed together. I picked them up and saw that they were even in my size (I would have bought them regardless of the size), and bought them right away. The fact that I randomly found them shortly after his passing, made me feel like a got a little closer to him. I will forever remember Dylan Rieder and I will never loose or destroy these beautiful shoes.

Recently my dad sent me images from our trip scouting universities in Italy.

Looking at these photos I remembered the shoes that I was wearing on that journey. It was the Adidas Torsion Allegra Camo, which was also the only pair that I brought with me for the five-day stay in Italy (usually I bring at least two pairs with me). Moving to Italy was always an idea my parents had, so in my junior year in high school, my dad took me around north Italy to check out some cities and their universities. We flew all the way to Milan, our starting point and from there we took a car and drove to Florence.

Arrived in Florence, we immediately check out the city, as I had never been there before. To be honest I was not so impressed as I thought I would be.

It just felt like any other Old Italian city to me, but maybe I’m just ignorant like that… The university we checked out there also was not the greatest, it was small and the facilities were horrible for the price we’d have to pay for every semester. So we set off to the next city, Bolzano, which is where everything started. When we got there my dad had organized a little university tour for me. Two students from the university volunteered to show me around and at the end of the tour I got participate in one of the lectures of the design faculty. I was pretty impressed, and it seemed like I had already taken my choice. Later that day we went to check out the skatepark, which is right around the corner of the university. Finding out that I could snowboard all winter and skate for the rest of the year was probably the biggest reason I chose to come study here in Bolzano. On our last day we went to Milan, but since I had already chosen where I wanted to go we did not even bother to check out the universities there, but also because we’d never be able to afford them… I guess I can say that this pair of Adidas runners was my witness in choosing in which direction my life would go.

This is one of the rather embarrassing stories, yet it still has to be told, as I think it is pretty funny looking back at what happened.It was my third year in middle school and the scholastic year had just started. Coming back from our yearly summer holiday in central Italy, we drove by the Nike Factory outlet, just at the border going from Italy into Austria. I begged my parents to stop for only twenty minutes, so I might be able to find a grail between the piles and piles of dead stock clothes and shoes. I managed to convince them and right away I found a pair that at the time I fell in love with: The Nike AirMax 1 Air Attack Silver/Red. So getting back to school with my new AirMaxes felt pretty great, they gave me confidence and energy. Being around 14/15 years old my friends and I started experimenting with alcohol, which is quiet normal for boys at that age, I think at least. Anyways, one day we decided to go a little bit harder than just drinking one or two beers, so we went to the store and asked a random man on the street to buy as a bottle of Smirnoff vodka.

No questions asked, the young man walked into the grocery store and bought us the bottle. (That day, I wore those silver/red AirMaxes with a pair of skinny blue jeans and a red plaid shirt, and a red and silver went breaker that matched the shoes.) Not thinking of the consequence that might appear we started drinking, as we wanted to impress some girls from the year above us. They told us that they wanted to party with us that night, so we started our journey to the KultFabrik (an area in east Munich with many night clubs at the time: 2010). We got there, already a little tipsy but still standing straight, only to find out that the place was closed and the girls also weren’t there‌

We continued to drink and went on with our journey to go party with these older girls. We called them again to find out where they were and headed towards their direction. At this point we were already way more than just tipsy, the two of us had now finished two thirds of that Smirnoff vodka (not a nice vodka in my opinion…). My head was already spinning, and my ability to walk straight was not that well anymore. Sitting in the metro waiting for the train to stop at our hopefully final destination, I started feeling sick, in fact so sick that I suddenly felt the urge to throw up. After all that vodka it was obvious that something like that had to happen. So right before our last stop, I threw up all over the place; I even managed to splatter on the perfectly clean and new oxford shoes of the man who was sat across me. The second I finished, the train stopped and I sprinted out of that station as if I was running away from napalm, my friend right behind me, since he didn’t want to loose his drunk friend in public. I honestly have no idea how I managed to run away, taking into account that moments earlier I even struggled to keep up my own head.

After that we finally got to the bar where were supposed to meet those girls. It turned out in all the madness we were going through we went to the wrong bar. Also I don’t remember the rest except throwing up again near the bathroom of that bar. The net day when I got home, I looked down to my shoes, wondering if I now had to throw away my brand new AirMaxes as they could have been covered in puke, but no: they were just as clean as the day I bought them. To this day I really wonder what goes through subconscious mind when I am drunk, particularly on that day;

Every year my family and I drive down to our little summerhouse in the Marches in central Italy on the east coast. Most of the summers I have been there got to see my relatives from my dads side. I usually go out for a couple of drinks with my uncle when I see him, since were are ever barely in touch throughout the year. But every time we see each other he buys me a pair of shoes, as he knows about my love for them. The year I turned 18 and the one after that he bought me the Puma Blaze of Glory’s x ALIFE. The 2015 edition and the 2016 one. The older ones are mostly black with red yellow and royal blue details. The newer ones are dark grey with red and purple details and grey reflective shoelaces. I wear the 2015 edition’s a lot, because the colour way is easier to match than the one of the other pair.

When I went to London at the end of December of 2015 I only brought them and a pair of Adidas Superstars. I stayed with my two best friends from Dubai, Sam and Maisum. We celebrated New Years Eve together at the apartment Sam’s parents had rented for themselves and us. That night I wore the Pumas brought with me, as it was the only choice beside the Superstars. It was a very relaxed and calm kind of vibe that night. None of us are really into celebrating public holidays so we took the night with ease.

We hung out, went out for dinner and went up to the rooftop to see the fireworks around us. The next day, wearing the same outfit as the night before, we went to the TATE modern to see an exhibition of light installations with together with Sam’s parents. I wore an orange vintage Harley Davidson Bomber Jacket with grey skinny jeans and the Puma x ALIFE’s. When we walked down to the entrance I saw a cool wall so I asked Sam if he could take a photo of me in front of it. That moment a guy walked by who wore the same outfit as I was. He wore different brands but the outfit was the exact same as my one colour wise, even the shoes. We looked at each other and gave each other a huge smile and a compliment on our outfits. As soon as he passed by we all busted out laughing, it was hilarious; it looked like we were each other’s stunt doubles for a movie. I wish I could see the guy closet so I could find out if he had more outfits that are similar to mine.

Back in 2016 I flew to New York City for two weeks to check out the city and go skate. A friend of mine randomly got a job at a pop-up museum, the ICECREAM MUSEUM (a place really wanted to go visit, but the tickets had to be pre-ordered and were already sold out). I was out walking around downtown New York with my girlfriend at the time, and our friend called us randomly and said that the owner of the gallery would let us have a tour in the museum without having pre-ordered the tickets. Of course we ran to the next subway station and got to the museum as fast as we could. A half hour later we arrived and we were welcomed by on of the staff members, who told us some quick background information about the museum. Right at the start of the tour I realised that my shoes weren’t only matching my outfit but the entire entrance of the museum. That day I had worn my AirMax 180 OG in white, pink and royal blue with pink socks, blue jeans shorts and a white shirt with a pink PlayBoy logo. The entrance of the museum was also within that colour range, with colour patches going diagonally through the room and a pink handrail. The tour then went on and we got to try many different kinds of ice cream and candy. The last room looked somewhat like a lab, it had five wall panels stacked up diagonally one behind another creating little gaps between the walls. Between the gaps there were little lab podiums with flask holders. The flask holders held ice cream cones and every now and then a hand would peak out of the gap to place a ball of lemon gelato on the cone. One could then take the cone and with that one was given a little pill that was to be dissolved on the tongue. The pill numbed the taste buds that make one feel the sourness of food, so we could eat the lemon ice cream only tasting the real flavour of the lemon without the sourness. It was a pretty sweet day, in all senses‌

When I was in New York City I bought one of my all time favourite shoes: the Nike Air Jordan 1 in all white.

I’ve wanted to have this pair for a long time, and I finally found them at a little hidden FootLocker in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. A couple of days later my friends and I went to a secret techno/house party in the backyard of an old factory located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I had just turned 20 and unfortunately the minimum age to get into bars/clubs in the US is 21. I still had a passport scan on my laptop, which I quickly modified so I would be 22 years old. I printed it out and we headed towards the party. As a tourist in the US, I guess people did not mind that I did not have my real passport with me. The security at the entrance were pretty chilled out and really did not care that I only brought a copy with me, so they let us in.

The party started at 5pm as it started off as a lounge sort of thing and later on it would turn into more of a rave. We got there pretty early, yet we were not in the mood to just hang out, we decided to go for a little walk and come back later. The security guards at the entrance asked us where we were going and if we could be kind enough to bring them some snacks and drinks. They had to sit outside the venue from the beginning until the end of the party. We agreed to bring them some groceries, as they were being nice to us from the beginning. When we got back from our little stroll around the area, to give the guys their food, one of them noticed that I was wearing my new Jordans and complimented me on them. After chatting with the two dudes for another couple of minutes we went inside. The party was already bumping. It was perfect timing. We danced the whole night and got to know heaps of new people. I don’t know if Americans are generally just kind and polite folks or if they were actually interested in what we do in our lives.

Regardless of all that I really enjoyed that night filled with new acquaintances and experiences. This time the shoes only played a little role in the story yet I think it was important to mention them. I find this to be a great memory I have wearing these shoes.

Around November 2017 I had the opportunity to watch one of my favourite rappers, Yung Lean perform live at a concert in Munich. I could not miss that chance by any means, so bought the tickets and took the bus to Munich a week later. I stayed at my best friend Friedel’s house, which is always a blast, as he ahs 5 siblings of whom there is always someone in the house, so it never gets boring. Yung Lean is also one of Friedel’s favourite rappers, which made it even more exciting to go to that concert. Of course we had to dress up to go to such an event, we had to look fresh. I had brought an overall made by Dickies that I wanted to wear, and he owns almost the same one in slightly a different colour. We decided that we wanted to go in matching outfits like we used to back in middle school. So we both wore our overalls yet with different coloured tops and sneakers to switch it up a little bit. Friedel wore a red long-sleeved Yung Lean merchandising t-shirt with the white Kenny Anderson converse. I wore white Suicidal Tendencies x Obey long sleeve with one of my favourite pairs of shoes, the AirMax 95 OG in grey with neon green details. Our outfits were matching hard and we really stood out of the crowd. Once Yung Lean came on stage we felt like we were in trance, the whole situation felt unreal, we stood right there, in front of our idol. I feel like it was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever felt when he started singing. The stage was small and so was the venue for the concert, therefore the sound was very clear but also very intense, the bass felt like a massage on my chest every time the 808 kicks came in. We tried to move further up front to the stage to get an even closer look at the performance, but suddenly and I honestly have no idea why, people started a mosh pit. It was extremely unnecessary, as none of the songs Yung Lean makes are anywhere near the style of music where you could mosh to. I instantly felt very uncomfortable as I was squeezed in a sea of drunken teenage boys who for some stupid reason had the need to pogo to music that did not even go faster than 120 bpm. Fortunately enough I had my AirMax 95’s on which helped my stand my ground and not fall over in the chaos. Soon enough I decided to back up a little and move further to the back of the venue to enjoy the concert from there without all the chaos.

Apart from the mosh pit I think this concert was one the if not the best experience I had in these joints, also because I somehow managed to keep them clean without even trying.

In late December 2017 I visited my friend Maisum in Dubai. I went to see him but also to attend his sisters wedding. I haven’t been to a wedding for at least 7 or 8 years so I did not even have an outfit from a previous one. I had to pull out my prom suit from 11th grade that still fits perfectly. They are a family from Indian decent yet with relatives all over the world. The wedding was pretty international, but it was still held with in the boundaries of the family tradition. Many of the family members are Muslim so they celebrated in an Islamic way. The first day was just a pre-celebration of the marriage were groom and bride did not officially get married yet. It was an Indian/Pakistani themed party where we all wore the classical Indian formal outfits. A long linen shirt with drop crotch trousers and a matching vest on top. It was a very exciting night, as I never had seen anything like that before, the dances the food and especially the colours. Everything and everyone was extremely colourful and euphoric. It was a very nostalgic night for me. The next day was the Nikah, the actually day of the wedding. Muslim wedding days are actually the exact same as Christian ones, except that the couple will not kiss in front of every one at the end of the ceremony. The last day, which was the day of the reception, was the day they celebrated the couple even more. For the reception I wore my navy blue suit and my Clark’s Wallabees x Stüssy. These almost moccasin looking shoes are a great compromise of a dress shoe and a casual one. I bought them in New York for half price because nobody seemed to really like them. It was a very classy event, I felt under dressed; I looked like a young drug cartel leader with my shirt untucked and my not so formal shoes.

It was not really a problem though, because nobody expected me to look more formal than I did. In the end it was a pretty good choice to wear these moccasin looking shoes, since we danced and moved around the dining hall all night. The Wallabees are easily some of the most comfortable shoes ever, as they are made with a super soft crepe sole that will keep your feet above the ground all day long. Since that wedding I have been wearing them more often, because I like that almost formal look, it makes me look a little more serious…

Mhmmmm… I kind of need a page filler. So yeah I’d like to thank Alex Erlacher and Curzio Castellan for always helping me out with camera gear and showing me how to work the lights in the studio. And also my parents for introducing me to sneakers and fashion. To all the people who got me shoes, thank you very much!

I hope that with this little book I can contribute to the sneaker culture.

Keep hating and covering up your feet, they’re gross. ugh