This Is What Versace-fied Onitsuka Tigers Look Like
The Versace Guanto Loafer is a classic: brown leather slip-on, painfully thin wooden sole, crumpling leather toe, and gold Versace medusa hardware. Now, the shoe has a new look informed by Onitsuka Tiger.
In Versace and Onitsuka Tiger’s debut collaboration, the stripes we’re accustomed to seeing on those slim Kill Bill shoes and high-tech runners from Onitsuka Tiger’s parent company, ASICS, are suddenly adorning Italian leather loafers. Naturally, the stripes look out of place. But that’s the fun of it.
Technically, the shoes were unveiled on the runway during Paris Fashion Week this past September. But the full collaboration is finally dropping via Versace’s website on April 2.
The loafers are the only Italian-made shoes of the bunch. The rest of the collection comes courtesy of Onitsuka Tiger’s recently refurbished factory in Tottori, Japan.
There, in Japan’s least-populated prefecture — the birthplace of the brand’s founder, Kihachiro Onitsuka — Onitsuka Tiger creates Versace’s TAI-CHI sneaker, a close relative to the flat-soled Mexico 66 model that the Japanese shoemaker is most famous for. The TAI-CHI’s Italian leather upper is hand-washed or buffed to achieve a worn-in texture. The options range from a metallic silver and gold rendition to a subtle monochrome beige pair, all decorated with a gold Versace Medusa emblem on the tongue.
These colorways come from the short-lived leadership of Dario Vitale, the ex-Versace creative director who presented this collaboration during his only Versace show. Pieter Mulier, once Raf Simons' right-hand man and most recently creative director at Alaïa, was announced as Vitale’s successor last month.
What the future of Versace will look like is, therefore, anyone’s guess. But the Versace of right now is preparing to release some of the most luxurious Onitsuka Tiger shoes (and some of the most bizarre loafers) ever seen.
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