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Here at Vogue HQ we’ve christened Spring 2018 the season of the ugly-chic shoe. Yes, we saw sexy pumps and warm-weather booties on the runways, but the footwear that we’re still talking about weeks later is the wild and wacky stuff, shoes like Balenciaga’s triple-height Crocs and Rick Owens’s survivalist Tevas. FitFlops, the decade-old brainchild of Bliss founder, Marcia Kilgore, are built in the same utilitarian spirit as Crocs, Tevas, and Birkenstocks. When it comes to these shoes, function has tended to trump fashion, which, of course, is exactly what attracts us to them. Fashion people embrace the offbeat, and tinker with the jolie laide until the items in question are not laide at all, but rather jolie.
Right on time, FitFlops are getting a high-style makeover of their own, courtesy of Michelle Stein, the president of Aeffe USA and a cheerleader for its brands including Alberta Ferretti, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, and Moschino. Stein, who lives in New York and whose entrepreneurial spirit was heretofore mostly untapped, discovered FitFlops on a trip to Milan when she was suffering from a back injury. The shoe’s unique construction is based on the idea of pressure diffusion; vetted through biomechanics, its three different densities distribute weight more evenly, which makes for more comfortable walking. Stein doesn’t claim FitFlops fixed her back, but swapping them for the uncomfortable, even painful heels she used to wear couldn’t have hurt. In any case, they’ve made her the fastest walker in her family on strolls through their Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, neighborhood. “My husband asks me, ‘Why are you running?’ I tell him, ‘It’s the shoes.’ ”
A quick convert, Stein approached FitFlop about a collaboration, and the Limited Edition collection—which features three sandal styles in black, white, cream, and metallic leathers, as well as a dark-rinse denim—was born. Stein approached FitFlop and said, “ I think we can make them cooler if you let me work with you.” Doug Jakubowski, FitFlop’s North American president, immediately signed up. “In the luxury market, there’s a void for a technology-based product that’s got comfort in it.” Jakubowski is confident about the collection’s success. So is a long list of retailers, from Barneys New York to Bird, Opening Ceremony, Capitol, Ikram, and A’maree’s.
Shop the Fitflop limited-edition collection, $150-250, from October 30.