I test drove Kerwin Frost's viral Adidas Superstuffed sneakers.
What's It Like Wearing the Biggest Shoes In Fashion?
I’m wearing the most comfortable sneakers right now. It’s like a walking foot massage, cradled by delicious padded foam, kissed by a puffer coat. I feel like I’m getting a deluxe foot rub. And while these kicks are extremely comfortable, they are also the largest sneakers, too. Humungous. Hulking. It looks like my foot got stuck in a beehive. They are the classic Adidas Superstars, but now laughably extended and bloated, courtesy of Kerwin Frost, the personality known for his bizarre street style and his talk show Kerwin Frost Talks. Frost, who collaborated with Adidas on the design, christened the shoe the “Superstuffed” thanks to their XXL look. Each shoe is fitted to someone’s actual size, but appears five sizes larger thanks to its funhouse mirror “stuffed” qualities.
Frost has always been one for playing with proportions. He attends fashion week in comically bulky suits and Gumby-stretched top hats. He also loves his weirdo footwear and traipses around from show to show in custom clown shoes, the size of a baby. His love for extreme proportions was one of the inspirations for his newest shoe. “I love mascot shoes,” he says. “When I was growing up, I would wear my cousin’s sneakers, and they would be bigger than mine. I always thought the proportion was hilarious.” Frost also culled references from Adidas, including a sculpture of a pair of giant Superstars outside the Adidas office in Portland, Oregon. Frost took notes of Run DMC as well, the rap group that popularized the Superstars and eventually gained a sneaker endorsement. “I was like, This is such a clean way to serve all those things,” Frost says.
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For the campaign, Frost promoted the shoe as if he were a superhero in a blue muscle suit, stomping around the city like Godzilla, with the jumbo-fied shoe on his back. IRL, he wore it with a slew of tracksuits on Instagram. Over the past week, these very shoes have been popping up on feeds styled in various ways. Ella Emhoff wore hers with gym shorts and a ribbed tank and photographed herself with her foot propped up to the mirror. Bella Hadid wore them with skinny jeans.
I decided to give the shoes a try with my own rendition. I had no idea what to wear. Frost’s wife, Erin Yogasundram, who helped design the shoe, recommended I try something like a Comme des Garçons skirt or skinny jeans. “They are universal,” she says. At first, I tried a pair of Wrangler mom jeans, but the shoes felt a bit hidden. In the end, I opted for a plain white ribbed tank and Tom Ford-era Gucci electric blue snakeskin-print pants.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Liana Satenstein
