The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Birkinstock’ shoes an outrage or art?
On the second Monday in February, the Banksys of consumer culture struck again.
MSCHF, the Brooklyn, New York, collective that created the “Jesus shoe” (Nike sneakers with soles filled with holy water), “88 Holes” (a Damien Hirst spot painting with all the spots cut out and sold separately) and MSCHF X (an “impossible collab” wherein the group chopped up T-shirts from 10 streetwear fashion brands and patchworked them back together) has dropped its latest piece of social media catnip.
“The most exclusive sandal ever made” is a Birkenstock-like piece of footwear with an official Birkenstock cork-and-rubber sole, but with a leather upper made from purposefully chopped-up Hermès Birkin bags. Shock, horror, fashion sacrilege!
The “Birkinstock” is either a raspberry to the high-end fashion world and its sudden obsession with the outdoor recreation world; a pointed commentary on the cult of the Birkin, which has been labeled a better investment than gold; or a piece of performance art that gives new meaning to Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction. Or it’s a cynical stunt calculated to break the internet, mocking hypebeast culture and profiting from it at the same time. Maybe all of the above.
“We’re just sort of fascinated with destroying expensive things and creating something new out of them,” said Daniel Greenberg, 23, MSCHF’S head of strategy (not that they are so into titles).
The shoes will be made to order and available while supplies last. Which, despite costing $34,000 to $76,000, depending on the size of the customer’s foot, will probably not be very long, judging
by both history and the availability of the raw material. The Jesus shoes sold out in one minute, the Hirst spots even faster. MSCHF bought only four Birkin bags to serve as raw material, and three pairs of the shoes have already been sold: to Future, who is modeling his on his Instagram feed; Kehlani; and an unnamed art collector. Plus MSCHF is planning to keep one for itself. There may be only four to six pairs left.
As to why they settled on a Birkin for their first entry into high fashion, aside from the obvious wordplay, Lukas Bentel, 28, one of MSCHF’S creative directors, explained: “Birkin bags are like a cultural meme, a symbol for a certain kind of wealth.” By “mashing it into a really accessible object,” they wanted to force people to perhaps question that symbolism. Plus, the wordplay really is kind of funny.
MSCHF was founded in 2016 and is normally based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, though employees are now scattered around the boroughs. It does drops the second and fourth Mondays of every month, ranging from abstract ideas like paying people to criticize companies it deems evil (Amazon,
Facebook, Tesla) to concrete products like the Birkinstocks.