Images Courtesy of Oneclique and DanielaBekerman.com
Shoes are, for better or worse, a fashion obsession, long worshipped before (and surely after) Carrie Bradshaw's televised genuflection for Choos and Manolos. Style gurus agree: start with the shoes and go from there. Skimp on the clothes, but splurge on the shoes, frugal fashionistas insist. Spare the rod and save the shoes! beg shoe devotees.
OK, that last one isn't real, but you get the idea—there's a whole host of shoe-related clichés out there—it's hard to stomach another one.
But, behold! Grab your scented stationary and get ready to scrawl to Santa because you're going to want these on your list. (Provided you haven't been naughty in which case we can't help you.)
Welcome to the world of modular shoes.
First up? Say hello to OneClique, interchangeable shoes for the modern wo(man.) While gadgets and clothes have gotten the customizable overhaul in recent years, footwear has yet to stylishly transformer-ized. All of OneClique's soles and tops are completely inter-swapable; simple math reveals that two pairs of shoes give you four different combos of style, color and heel height.The idea is so simple and dare-we-say awesome, it's surprising nobody has nailed this yet.
OneClique are, as some say, shoes 'you actually want to wear' (as opposed to this useful, but aesthetically blah blah bland idea by Urshuz). There is one problem however—this incarnation of click-able shoe parts only caters to heel and platform lovers—everyone else is left out of the tootsie party.
Since heels and platforms share the same mold and don't require a modification in the shoe's basic structure, it's understandable why a company like OneClique would go for the easy route—but shouldn't women who shy away from heels enjoy the innovative idea as well?
A quick search on the 'ol Interwebs reveals a few more ways to go—Israeli industrial designer Daniela Bekerman, for example, came up with an elegant modular model that truly enables major changes in the shoe's look and feel. (As for those spandex Capri pants...there's no interchange on earth that could salvage them.)
ZeoZe (meaning 'this or that' in Hebrew), her final project for Bezalel Academy, look sane, practical, and relatively chic, but alas, in order to get your hands on them, you have to email her personally (this is 2014 right?!) which is a far less instantly-gratifying experience than OneClique's fun as hell, interactive website.
Maybe Bekerman should ask Santa for a front-end designer and a Paypal account.