My silly shoes: design, spectacle, and embarrassment

Here are my new shoes. A friend (Kevin) got a pair and they seemed like an excellent idea. They have no support, they give your toes exceptional freedom, you can move surprisingly like you were in bare feet, and you are protected by, albeit thin, soles from pointy things that annoy your feet. I have worn these playing tennis (limited to an hour at a time out of caution) and they are great. I think that I would wear them every day were it not for the spectacle that they cause and the derision that they inspire in people. The laughs and surprise is, well, surprising to me. It is true that I have big feet (size 13) and so these shoes do look like the gorilla feet that you might purchase at a costume shop. I have had to spend quite a lot of time explaining these shoes to people and deflecting silly remarks.

At the end of the day, this is really a design issue. I can imagine one of two possible chains of thought by the designers: ambivalence or intentionality. I can totally imagine, if the designers are out-of-doors types trying to improve on Tevo's or something that they might completely miss the utter strangeness of these shoes. This ambivalence to the consequences of design (me being forced to explain my shoe-ware) will likely narrow the audience of these shoes to those who are willing to put up with the spectacle (I pick my battles). An alternate interpretation of intent is that the designers are fully aware of the weirdness of their design and are going with the "let your freak flag fly" approch to design. I think that is a mistake. My reason is simple: the shoes are very comfortable and it seems reasonable to offer a style that does not require one to become a walking advertisement.

To me, the solution is trivial: put a flexible shroud over the toes so that the most peculiar aspect of the shoes - the individuated toes - is not readily apparent. I'm not sure that this would entirely eliminate the spectacle but it would at least require a more observant bystander.

I am reminded of a sitter I had when I was a little boy. He had Birkenstock's when they were a totally new thing (probably the late 1960's). I remember thinking - wow, those are weird and his reply was very much what I find myself doing: explaining why they made sense. Perhaps, this is the path that excellent design ideas must travel - eventually, they will prevail and become the norm; perhaps they need to hold their ground to make their point. Perhaps I am too old to "let my freak flag fly" without complaining!