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Oh, nothing special, just a duck walking through Beijing showing off its shoes. Link -via Buzzfeed
(Image credit: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media)
This whimsical design by footwear designer Kobi Levi is a "shoe-in" for fun! Check out his blog for many more wonderfully unusual shoe designs: Link (my favorite is the Olive Oyl) – via Book of Joe
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If you need just the right item to complete your “What were you thinking?” outfit, I suggest these hoof shoes, available in ankle and knee lengths. These £1,300 ($2802) shoes feature synthetic hooves, but are made from 5,000 horse hairs each:
The knee-length and ankle-length shoes were commissioned to celebrate 100 years of the famous National Hunt festival, which begins on Tuesday.
Three pairs will be sold with proceeds going to the Prostate Cancer Charity.
Link via Born Rich | Photo: BBC
Lauren Milroy, a mechanical engineer with a background in the aerospace industry, recently completed a master’s program in design. She made these shoes out of colored pencils.
Link via Dude Craft | Artist’s Website
The Wicked Witch of the East Door Stop - $27.95
Do you know someone who is hard to shop for? The Wicked Witch of the East Door Stop from the NeatoShop, because even a real witch can appreciate a great pair of shoes.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Wizard of the Oz fun.
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Therese of Earth and Living figured out how to construct shoes like those worn by Medieval Scandinavians. It’s not as simple as you might think, but it’s a quite feasible craft project for the non-professional leatherworker. She provides step-by-step instructions with pictures from start to finish. Once you’re done, grab a sword and go raiding!
Link via The Presurfer
So you’re going scuba diving for pirate treasure, and shortly thereafter, to a ritzy gallery opening. To save time between the two events, you can wear these high heeled flippers by Belgian artist Paul Schietekat.
A few days ago, Allie Brosch described in detail the confusion her dogs went through when wearing their first shoes. So you can witness that sort of thing yourself, here is Booba, a presumably normal Shi Tzu wearing his new yellow shoes. He doesn’t appear to be accustomed to wearing shoes. -via Buzzfeed
There’s a store in Japan that is now selling shoes with sole imprints inspired by Ukiyo-e woodblock printing. Three other patterns are available. The creators built their design around Merrell-style American shoes.
The lady shown here is wearing “chopines”, or platform shoes. Chopines were worn in the Middle Ages to keep feet and dress hems out of the dust and mud. They also came to represent class, as a taller woman was obviously of a “higher” class. However, this picture was taken in 1873 in Damascus. Read more on the history of shoe lifts at TYWKIWDBI. Link
When What The World Needs Now was published in 1984 I felt I had tapped into a streak of American cultural insanity – or, to be more honest, my own insanity – so successfully that no future designs in any field could out-crazy mine. Wrong! Instead, I see now that my work was just a timid first step in a worldwide mix ‘n match innovation binge that would make my odd designs look almost staid and boring. In 1984, these women’s shoes, for example, were my idea of nutty-crazy.
Yet, if you follow fashion design these days, some of the designs for dresses, coats, hats and shoes for women seem over-the-top insane. Today, no strange idea is allowed to remain unexplored.
I have tried my best to be ahead of the curve. Here are some truly meaningless and awkward shoe-hat combo designs. This clothing line is part of my As Above So Below collection. These, I hope, are crazier than current clothing designers would dare offer to the buying public.
In women’s wear, funky and colorful tennis shoes have become a fashion item and are sometimes worn with a formal dress or business suit.
When I look back at my files from 1982-83 I find odd hat designs that touched on the shoe-hat theme. They have never been published. They are shown on Neatorama for the first time.
These cool Batman and Robin shoes are just prototypes at the moment but I hope Brass Monki gets them into production. All you’d need to complete that 60s superhero look are tights and a cape.
Link – Via Dangerous Minds
Elevator shoes that work like a real elevator -going up and down as needed, controlled by an iPhone app. -via Nag on the Lake
The matriach of avant-garde fashion and the Brazilian footwear company have turned the shrink ray on two of Westwood’s popular Anglomania designs: the Lady Dragon Bow and Lady Dragon Heart. The result? Four Mini-Me versions for milk-imbibing hoofers.
I’d consider binding my feet to fit these tiny Vivienne Westwood designed vegan shoes but they are a little pricey and I’d only look like mutton dressed as lamb.
Three years ago, Alex posted about the discovery of a 3,000-year old shoe. It was then thought to be the oldest ever found. Now archaeologists have found one about 5,500-years old in a cave in Armenia:
Stuffed with grass, perhaps as an insulator or an early shoe tree, the 5,500-year-old moccasin-like shoe was found exceptionally well preserved—thanks to a surfeit of sheep dung—during a recent dig in an Armenian cave.
About as big as a current women’s size seven (U.S.), the shoe was likely tailor-made for the right foot of its owner, who could have been a man or a woman—not enough is known about Armenian feet of the era to say for sure.
Made from a single piece of cowhide—a technique that draws premium prices for modern shoes under the designation “whole cut”—the shoe is laced along seams at the front and back, with a leather cord.
There’s a comment on its design from fashion mogul Manolo Blahnik at the link.
Link | Photo: Gregory Areshian
Nike78 is an project by designer Paul Jenkins and the Nike apparel company which invited artists to modify shoes in creative ways. The Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency in Tokyo turned one of their shoes into an aquarium.
Link via Super Punch | Project Page | Photo: W+K Tokyo Lab
Artist Steven Rodrig sculpts with printed circuit boards. He has made shoes, insects, flowers, podiums, and book covers from the material.
Link via Make | Photo: Xact Studios
Arturo Vidich, Eric Mika, and Tai Yin Ho equipped pressure sensors to the soles of a set of shoes. They can be played like a musical instrument by dancing in different ways. The project is called “Beat Feat”. You can view schematics and construction photos at the link.
Geeks and geekettes rejoice, you can finally buy a sweet pair of styling shoes that pay homage to your favorite sci-fi movie. The one pictured above is the Luke Skywalker version. I think the coolest is the slave Princess Leia one in purple and gold, but to be fair, it probably won’t match most of your clothes.
Has anyone actually seen these on sale yet? I want a pair.
Photo: Mbari (2003)
We’ve featured Grimpoteuthis AKA the Dumbo octopus (look at its ears) before on Neatorama, but I couldn’t resist this photo from The Deep, a book by French documentary film producer Claire Nouvian (featuring more than 200 photos of weird deep sea creatures taken by scientists from submersibles). It looks like the Dumbo octopus has a pair of stylish shoes!
Previously on Neatorama: The Deep Book: Fantastic Photos of Deep Sea Creatures
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.”
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
The two sportswear companies Puma and Adidas, based in Herzogenaurach, Germany were founded by Adi and Rudolf Dassler. The two brothers made shoes together beginning in the 1920s but split apart during World War II, probably over politics. Sixty years later, the two companies on either side of the river will officially end the feud on September 21st.
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
It may be counterintuitive (and hard to digest for parents like myself who always have to tell our kids to wear shoes when playing outside) but going barefoot may actually be better for you.
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?
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.”
What do the rich and famous do with all their dough? Some of them, it turns out, collect weird things – here is a neat post about a few weird collections of the rich over at mental_floss:
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
Safety is no laughing matter, say circus bosses as they ban … clown shoes:
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.
After having solved all of the world’s problems like cancer and global warming, scientists turn their attention to the vexing problem of why the top of your shoes get soaked when walking on a wet pavement:
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)
Shoe designers have been busy incorporating the latest technology into shoes. This list has shoes embedded with iPod transmitters, CDs, MP3 players, GPS trackers, and headlights. Others have springs or computer-enhanced fit. The shoe pictured was produced especially for the social media site Digg, with glow-in-the-dark logos! Link -via Digg
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