Love ’em or hate ’em, Birkenstock continues to make high strides into high fashion — this time, with a collaboration with Dior.
Christian Dior — famously green-fingered; as inspired by the soft swoop of a flower’s corolla as he was a classic female figure — loved gardens. In a menswear show many are touting as a “collaboration” with the Christian Dior himself, souvenirs and floral impressions taken from his other great passion should come as no surprise.
“We’ve done a Birkenstock, but only because we didn’t want to do a Christian Dior gardening shoe and copy it,” said Kim Jones at Dior’s AW22 menswear show.
Wielding the handwriting of Thibo Denis (who brought us Dior’s technical B22 sneaker and the Dior x Stüssy collab), these collaborative Birkenstock Tokio clogs and Milano sandals — defiantly not a copy of a Christian Dior gardening shoe, but coming at the heels of many past collaborators including Proenza Schouler, Jil Sander and Rick Owens — are remixed for slightly muddy terrains; ones that might set the scene for a wall of roses, or thickets of gardenias that need repotting.
Dior x Birkenstock’s High Fashion, High Comfort Affair:
New-in features include a reinforced rubber toe, a Matthew Williams-signature buckled strap, an overt marker of the Dior x Birkenstock link-up with co-branding from either labels bleeding from one to the other mid-outsole and, on one occasion, uppers embroidered with dainty florals. Though, if you’re purchasing these for horticultural purposes, perhaps opt out of the grey felt colourway lest messy consequences come to play — but hey, Birkenstocks are meant to be lived in. A smear of dirt on a floral-embroidered vignette? Just adds character. Or, just spot-clean immediately.
These Birkenstocks by Dior are set to be released in June 2022, so slip into something comfortable while you wait. Maybe another Marmite-adjacent sandal?
Hero and featured images courtesy of @birkenstock1774
This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong.
