A landmark in the history of the shoe is cited as early as the ninth-century when the attachment of a heel was constructed to hold a horse rider's foot in the stirrup. Through history foot decoration has played an extraordinary role of identity, spanning all cultures and corners of the globe. It was the French nobility from the sixteenth-century however who used their soles to project their social standing and so the term well-heeled was born. Before the risings of the French Revolution high-heeled shoes, for both men and women, became synonymous with opulent wealth for over two centuries until their abrupt end in the late eighteenth-century when the very associations that were once admired turned quickly into a right of passage towards the guillotine.
So to the irony, when a French fashion house steeped in equine luxury and purveyor of exclusivity such as Hermès, meets an American sneaker brand who cater for the urban youth in an unofficial collaboration by American stylist Robert Verdi. Verdi has customised a series of Vans Slip-Ons with vintage Hermès silk scarves that bring together the classic trademark products of their respective brands to define the 'High-Low' style of the twenty-first century. While identity continues to be expressed through fashion today, a pair of these silky kicks will definitely have you walking in contemporary harmony... on horseback or BMX.
