Fashion shows typically follow a fixed blueprint, with little variation to the action. With the exception of Chanel, whose consistently innovative set design wows each season (how can one not be impressed by a Chanel airport or casino?), it’s usually tall, thin models moodily walking to some obscure soundtrack in an industrial-slash-ultra-modern space for a good 12 minutes before the designer takes a bow. I’d hazard a guess that no fashion show has ever gone the route of presenting an entire street sports club, complete with skating ramps, BMX riders and skateboarders flipping ollies in designer threads. Until the Jimmy Choo’s presentation for their Spring/Summer 2016 mens collection, that is.

Modelled as a rule-breakers’ rendition of the British gentleman’s sporting club, the Jimmy Choo skatepark even boasts a pompous Latin motto that loosely translates to a modern day #yolo, “Vive Sicut Audes”. During the preview, bigshot street stunt masters and athletes like James Hewett, Zac Miller, Jak Tonge and more put the latest Jimmy Choo collection and themselves to the test as onlookers were awed. Designer Sandra Choi explains the reason behind her youthful inspiration – “These sports are all about seeing the urban environment in a new way, with a creative disrespect, and then using it as a crucible for adrenalin and originality. We are very excited to see the collection put to the test by these radical athletes.”

Latest shoe offerings play on extremely bright pops of colour, alongside ugly-chic design motifs like stonewashed denim and pinstripe. Styles play on a marriage between old and new schools, sports and formality, by working around odd combinations of materials. Scuba shoes and miltirary boots combine in the Ezra’s form, while brouged uppers perch atop vulcanized rubber soles in the Ross and Reggy for a neat medley of uptown and downtown. Even familiar Jimmy Choo classics get a street-style remake, and some of them veer towards punk, like the Argyle high-top sneaker that features a cool mesh upper.

Jimmy Choo makes it trendy to be caught in limbo this season, and our feet are bolder for it.

Story Credits
Text by Beatrice Bowers

This article was originally published in Men’s Folio