Photo: Dalia Birske

Martynas Birskys of the Vilnius-based design studio DaDaDa sells slippers made out of bread. For your comfort, you can select from various sizes and grains. It’s hard to argue with his sales pitch “eatable…dries itself… made from bread…first in fashion…needs no pressing…feels good in dry climate …won’t sag.”

Link via GearFuse

Allee Willis is a fantastic and accomplished songwriter by day (she wrote the Friends theme song I’ll Be There For You, for example) and a kitsch collector by night.

Thanks to the Interweb, we can now marvel at her extensive collection of kitsch. As a bacon afficionado, it’s my sworn duty to bring you these Bacon Shoes:

Nothin’ tastier in the morning then to slip on a nice pair of bacon shoes and go about your day. As someone who loves the meaty stuff, this is the perfect way to avoid all that grease and and keep your feet looking crisp and scrumptious all day. I have bacon bandages, bacon scarves, designer bacon everything, but the printing is so cheap on most of it it just looks like pink and red wavy stripes. But on these Keds it actually looks like the real thing.

Link | More at Kitsch O’The Day and her new website, The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch

Related – from the Neatorama Shop: Bacon Store

When the brothers set up their separate companies in 1948 the town was also split, with residents loyal to one or other of the only major employers.

In a joint release, the two companies said they were making up to support the Peace One Day organisation, which has its annual non-violence day on Monday.

They say that the events will be the first joint activities held by the two companies since the brothers left their shared firm in 1948.

Adi and Rudolf Dassler went to their graves without settling their differences, and their descendants do not control either of the public companies. Link -via the Presurfer

Here’s a New York Times article by Amy Cortese about the controversial movement of running barefoot (or barely barefoot anyhow, as these runners still wear thin rubber running shoes like the ones shown to the left):

Recent research suggests that for all their high-tech features, modern running shoes may not actually do much to improve a runner’s performance or prevent injuries. Some runners are convinced that they are better off with shoes that are little more than thin gloves for the feet — or with no shoes at all.

Plenty of medical experts disagree with this notion. The result has been a raging debate in running circles, pitting a quirky band of barefoot runners and researchers against the running-shoe and sports-medicine establishments.

Naturally, Nike and other large shoe manufacturers aren’t amused:

The shoe industry giants defend their products, saying they help athletes perform better and protect feet from stress and strain — not to mention the modern world’s concrete and broken glass.

But for all the technological advances promoted by the industry — the roll bars, the computer chips and the memory foam — experts say the injury rate among runners is virtually unchanged since the 1970s, when the modern running shoe was introduced. Some ailments, like those involving the knee and Achilles’ tendon, have increased.

Link (Photo: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times)

Maybe this fellow doesn’t have a car on which to put his bumper stickers, or he just wants to communicate with people walking behind him.

If you had bumper stickers on the back of your shoes, what would they say?

Link via Gear Fuse

Just in time for Mothers’ Day! It’s the Zombie Stomper Heel, which the seller describes as “Perfect for stompin’ on zombies..and men’s hearts.”

Link via Double Plus Undead

Imelda Marcos

When Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda hastily fled the Philippines and Malacañan Palace when Ferdinand’s regime was overthrown, they left behind nearly all of their possessions, which were quite numerous. Imelda was first thought to own more than 6,000 individual shoes, a number which was later downgraded to a mere 1,060 pairs. She also abandoned 65 parasols, 15 mink coats, 888 purses, 508 floor-length dresses and 71 pairs of sunglasses.

Link – via i met a possum

Previously on Neatorama: 25 Strangest Collections on the Web

A clown has been told he cannot wear his giant comedy shoes during his act because they breach health and safety rules.

Valerik Kashkin broke a toe after falling from a high-wire and has been told his size 18s were to blame.

His bosses have now banned the clown – whose routine also includes playing a drum kit, trumpet and double bass at the same time – from using the outsize footwear and ordered him to perform barefoot, instead.

Link

The team used a high-speed video camera to film a person walking on a wet floor. The footage (see above) reveals how water is flung up from the ground, along the sole, and onto the top of the shoe.

The researchers calculated that shoes flick up about a pint of water after walking 20 kilometres on a damp day.

Link (with video clip and a clever animation of the process)

The Dovima, as the shoe is known, is beautiful (and slightly creepy) thanks to the rose pink-dyed taxidermy birds perched delicately on each toe. Each stuffed bird also has a crystal-encrusted head and is further complemented by 24 ct gold-coated mesh, silk, ribbons, and crocodile-skin rosettes. Plus every pair comes with special protective crocodile or snakeskin platforms that attach before you wear them to keep the shoes from ever touching the ground.

Link -via J-Walk Blog

According to Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Pat Santangelo, thousands of pairs of used shoes mysteriously appeared at 7:42 a.m. on the southbound lanes of the Palmetto Expressway between the Bird Road and Miller Drive exits.

Employees of the Florida Department of Transportation’s Road Rangers service, which is meant to provide roadside assistance, managed to push all the shoes into one lane using large brooms.

A private contractor was hired to use a front-end loader to pick up the shoes by the dozen and load them into a large dump truck, Santangelo said.

”At this point, no one’s claimed the shoes,” Santangelo said.

Link

(image credit: Flickr user NessieNoodle)

In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.

"All I can report is a size 10," Mr Bush said according to the Associated Press news agency.

The shoe thrower was taken away by security guards and the news conference continued.

Correspondents called it a symbolic incident. Iraqis threw shoes and used them to beat Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad after his overthrow.

Link – Thanks Mark Storen!

I never realized that finger dancing is so popular that they actually make cute little shoes to go on your fingers. Check out this guy doing the finger breakdance: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Geekazoid!