I can hear them before I can see them. In Balenciaga’s Spring 23 shows, held on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, most of the attendees were already taking their seats when a sort of creaking creak approached from the other side of a trading post. It’s Ye, neé Kanye West, wearing the biggest boots I’ve ever seen. Saying something, because Ye herself introduced huge, OSHA-approved tools like Red Wing 3094 into the dictionary of men’s fashion. But Ye’s new Balenciagas, which will officially debut on the runway shortly after, has captured his love for exaggerated proportions (and what one writer voiced). “The country of luxury slate”) to an even more provocative height.
Balenciaga calls them Steroid Boots, a follow-up to the viral high-heeled boots the brand released with Crocs earlier this year. Like the Crocs, the ‘Roids’ rubber shoes are made from a single mold – zoom in and you can see a translucent seam running across the Ronald McDonald-esque shoebox. In a press release, Balenciaga describes the shoe as “thick yet light.” They look like rescue divers’ boots, designed to keep a frogman anchored on the seafloor; in fact, they will probably float.
The new silhouette raises the question: Has Ye, a top Balenciaga client and popular Demna collaborator, become something more like a muse for the house’s creative director? (Demna, in a move very similar to Ye, dropped her last name late last year.) Ye didn’t wear one of her infamous masks at the Spring 23 show, but the models were wrapped in fancy rubber masks. obscure their identities. He is also Adidas’ most famous and influential collaborator, and one wondered if he would advise Demna on the Balenciaga x Adidas collection. announced yesterday.
Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian is, of course, the face of Balenciaga, and has helped Demna perform some of the brand’s most influential stunts, like when she and the designer attended the Met Gala in black shroud. Ye’s role may be less public, but even more impactful. His preference for bottom-heavy proportions influenced hyperbeast generation, and as models walk through the NYSE, it’s hard to imagine the silhouette feeling legible without Ye and his weird public style experiments to show fans how it’s done. It goes without saying that the public will probably clown on a pair of boots that look like, you know, circus clowns. Not that Demna — or Ye — cared. “I am not interested in anything average, even the average consumer,” Gvasalia tell GQ about the controversy, if it can be called, about Croc-boots. “If someone is personally offended by Crocs,” he says, “there can be a more serious problem within that person than the design of a shoe.”
While everyone is looking at Ye’s new shoes, Frank Ocean walk down Wall Street just about not being noticed. You might have loads of sleek fans these days, but Ocean is a true northern star for the classy guys who dress up for other cool guys. Ocean has been wearing Prada sneakers for a couple of seasons now, washed-out denim with a really universal, non-minimalist fit, a classic green Adidas zip-up hoodie ( wore the original material for the collaboration premiere – great) and looked like a baffling piece of a minor league baseball cap. Under the hood? One Prada polo shirt. Not many people can wear a polo shirt to a fashion show and look as stylish and confident as Duong. But what’s great about Ye and Demna’s outrageous exaggeration is the space they create for a more subtle expression. And when everyone wears a pair of steroids, a blue polo shirt starts to look more sophisticated – it also looks a little out of the ordinary.
