The raise and fall of the Slip-on

By Antonio Malara

Years ago while I was surfing the web with my iPad, I saw a pair of shoes that coughed my attention. It was the Jimmy Choo website and the shoes were the slip-on model. These shoes were in leather with a crocodile design, so I was excited because finally I saw something new and different. What I liked was that the shoes were a combination of a sneaker and a loafer. I didn’t buy on line because I wasn’t sure about the size and the shoes were so expensive. In the spring of 2014 when I was in Milan I tried to find the slip-on in the official store. Unfortunately there was no Jimmy Choo for men but only for women, the retailer sent me to a luxury mall where maybe I could find the model. Once there they only had some size (not mine of course),  so my mission failed inside the “Rinascente”.

By the end of the same year Dsquared2 come out with the same model of shoes, black with the bottom in white, all in plain leather. I was planning another trip to Milan for March 2015 so I decided to buy them in the store. I spent 400€ but I was happy, I had during the years a cool and different black shoes so I renewed this tradition. 
Step by step I noticed that almost all the brands started to have this kind of shoes on their online store, I was disappointed at the beginning because I had to “fight” for them. This disappointing was just the tip of the iceberg because the tragedy was around the corner. In fact one year later I started to see the slip-on on the feet of everybody. Even those who don’t understand nothing about fashion. I was mad and I understood that some brand started to produce low cost slip-on. Thanks to this I also noticed that there was no creativity in the brands. I noticed that almost all the big brands had at least five six model of shoes that were identical except for the logo. Agreement, lack of competition between brands? The fact was that that shoes was devalued in my eyes. I accepted the reality and I went on. 

I wanted to create this total Dsquared2 look to celebrate my love and hate for the slip-on. I paired the shoes with my skinny clement jeans and this “Caten 64” distressed effect t-shirt that is a piece from this summer. The clean and casual outfit, becomes distinguished thanks to the logo. As you can see the slip-on is a great shoe, looks cool with different kind of outfits, it’s comfortable but everyone has it so I’m not in love anymore.

What I hope for the future is that brands and designers start to create new and innovative models of shoes without copying each other or be agreed each other. I saw that for women accessories there’s more creativity and brands design something new and unseen, I would like that this trend could be also for the men clothing. So let’s hope for something new, let’s hope that some designers could come out with a slip-on 2.0

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T-shirt: Dsquared2
Jeans: Dsuared2
Slip-on: Dsuared2


Photo: Luciano Zingali