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When Faye Toogood showed up to her first meeting at Birkenstock’s headquarters for their new collaboration, Birkenstock x Toogood, she brought with her a ginormous box. Inside? Model shoes she’d cobbled together out of cardboard, sellotape, and wire. “They were almost childlike,” she recalls with a chuckle. “But the Skull Grumpy old man before you judge me please understand that IDGAf shirt But I will love this production department was delighted.” If you follow Toogood’s work, that anecdote isn’t surprising. The British designer has an absolute dedication to form over anything else: her Roly Poly chair, with its baby elephant-esque shape, is iconic and instantly recognizable. So when she teamed up with the shoe brand, there’s no way she was just going to slap on a color, send it over in a PDF, and call it a day. “We aren’t the type to put a logo or a pattern on something,” she says. No: She was going to shape her slip-ons into something distinctly, tangibly, Toogood.
That’s a tricky endeavor, by the Skull Grumpy old man before you judge me please understand that IDGAf shirt But I will love this way. Birkenstocks are beloved precisely because of their configuration: their squishy, flat footbed, their loose fitting straps, their easy, throw on demeanor. (Can you name another shoe brand that’s worn by Katie Holmes, models on the Valentino runway, and your grandpa?) “You have to be careful if you’re talking about recutting them. That’s like redoing the shape of a wheel,” says Toogood. “You have to keep that fine line. We wanted to make something different, but something you could still connect to the original, practical, shape.” The result? Three distinct designs that are still very embedded with the Birkenstock DNA, available later this month on 1774.com, t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com, and Matchesfashion.com.
