The Art of Embracing Ugly Shoes

Artist Diana Rojas nearly fooled her Instagram followers. For the last few months, she’s been sculpting her own versions of designer shoes, replicating the platforms, double-sided cowboy boots, and dirty sneakers of brands including Gucci, Hood By Air, and Vetements, then posting photos of them to her feed. Not long after she started, her DM inbox started to fill up with shocked replies like, “I thought those were real at first!” While she started off molding ceramic Nike AF1s and Converse high-tops, Rojas quickly moved on to the expensive stuff—the splurge goods she couldn’t talk herself into actually buying at Barneys or Bergdorf. “I thought, Wait a second, if I can sculpt it, I can have it,” she explains. “The possibilities were overwhelming.”

Indeed, they were. Not only could she mold and heat and dry her own pair of Balenciaga Triple S sneakers, but she could experiment artistically with the vast number of oddly shaped, “ugly” shoes currently infiltrating the market (and selling out). For Rojas, the enduring and extensively dissected trend of ugly fashion and, in particular ugly footwear, became a fascinating means of creative expression. “My Instagram photos are being read as a sort of trompe l’oeil moment in a time when people are so used to just scrolling through life,” the artist says. “We continue to see how the fashion industry pushes the limits on what a shoe can be, which has been enough to make people ask, ‘Is that even a shoe?’ and my #ceramic versions of those shoes are being read as possible reality.”

Rojas recently took on the challenge of sculpting some of the buzziest and by all accounts unattractively chic shoes from the Spring 2018 runways: the platform Crocs from Balenciaga, the Loewe sneaker with a curled-up toe, Rihanna’s thong stiletto for Fenty x Puma, and Marc Jacobs’s Teva-meets–Shape Ups sandal. Why, dare we ask, is she so drawn to the unusual shapes and features of these quirky kicks? Furthermore, why is every discerning fashion person on the planet so over the moon for ugly-fabulous footwear? “Shoes reveal so much about their wearer, no matter how basic, ugly, or shocking,” Rojas notes. “I think people today are drawn to these shoes and silhouettes because it allows them to question an object that they thought they were familiar with.”

If we’re talking about the draw of high-low style and consumer familiarity, the Croc rules the roost. Lyndon Hanson, one of the three creators of Crocs, has explained that when he first saw his friend Scott Seaman’s design for a new and durable boat shoe, he said immediately and without hesitation, “Those are ugly.” Seaman replied, “I know, but they have a lot of utility.” The three guy’s guys who visited trade shows with their synthetic slip-ons tied to fishing lines probably never imagined that their odd, water-resistant creations would one day wind up on the runway at Christopher Kane and Balenciaga. Or as a whole, be worth upwards of $1 billion. Would anyone have guessed?

Alas, we are somehow drawn to stranger-than-fiction trends and sometimes, utilitarian pieces of clothing with little aesthetic value. As the SVP of product and marketing for Crocs Michelle Poole tells us, “Because the classic clog is such a recognizable silhouette it generates tremendous brand loyalty, but it’s also attracted a lot of haters and has been viewed as a fashion outsider.” She goes on, “In today’s world of fashion cycles, what is once ‘out’ becomes ‘in’ again—in fact, this has helped us attract the attention of luxury fashion forces like Christopher Kane and Balenciaga. The Croc is a clean, everyday look that with some re-imagination quickly becomes extraordinary.”

Imagination is key to the appeal of ugly shoes for millennial shoppers. To understand why we are attracted to such peculiar footwear is to know that our brains often favor the unusual over the simplistic. Carolyn Mair, PhD and professor of Psychology for Fashion explains it as such: “Psychologists have established that we don’t pay attention to what’s ‘normal,’ usual, or familiar because it presents no danger. However, when we encounter something novel, our attention is drawn to it. So, in addition to the comfort and utilitarian value of these shoes, perhaps it is the desire for attention that motivates wearers.” In fashion, we call that peacocking. But as Mair also points out, many people who want and wear ugly shoes do it in order to show some sartorial bravery, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. To her, the most important thing to remember is that “describing ‘different’ as ‘ugly’ isn’t helpful.” She adds, “Can we call these ‘ugly’ shoes ‘different’? What is considered beautiful has changed throughout history and is culturally constructed. Not everyone will see this footwear as ugly, but describing it as such gives it a label which then influences our thinking.”

Call them ugly or call them different, this season’s upturned toes, pink foam platforms, and thick orthopedic soles confirm a fundamental truth of fashion: Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.