Mats Rombaut was inspired by the Telsa Cybertruck for little X Æ A-12.
How One Designer 3-D Printed a Shoe For Grimes and Elon Musk’s Baby
What do you get as a gift for a baby like X Æ A-12, aka the four-month-old tot of Grimes and Elon Musk? A pacifier seems a bit tame, and a bib is a snooze for the child made by a man who wants to colonize Mars and a woman who can dance with a Valkyrie sword. While the gift-giving might be a confusing task, Mats Rombaut, founder of the label Rombaut, might have cracked the code: a pair of baby shoes.
The Paris-based designer who creates zero waste-minded vegan shoes that come cool and without granola crunch created itty-bitty baby shoes for the child with the 3-D printing-footwear company, Zellerfeld. The pair has a futuristic tinge: the Lilliputian footwear has a chunky sole and a textured upper with a piece of velcro to fasten, with the name X Æ A-12 stamped across it. They are so tiny that they can fit in the palm of a hand.
The gift felt natural for Rombaut, who had long admired Grimes and Musk even before they had gotten together. “I have been really a fan of both, so it was both worlds that were merging when they were having a baby,” says Rombaut over the phone from Paris. “Since they announced her pregnancy, I was dreaming of making a shoe for the baby because it is the representation of the future and hope.” Plus, Grimes was already a fan of Rombaut’s push-the-limits sustainable footwear creations—last year, the singer herself purchased an outré pair of his cowboy sneakers and boots (crafted with apple leather) after discovering him on Instagram.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Liana Satenstein
