When MSCHF asks you to destroy its sneakers, you oblige. Even if those $195 sneakers are flipping for over double retail. On July 28, MSCHF and Jimmy Fallon dropped their collaborative Gobstomper shoe to much anticipation, having already been teased by the Tonight Show host during on-feet his show and Instagram account earlier in the week.
So, once MSCHF gave us our own Gobstomper — yes, the name is Gobstomper, not Gobstopper (that's a copyrighted Willy Wonka candy, ya know) — we assumed that a regular photoshoot would be in order. The usual stuff: in-hand shots, on-feet, all that.
But the Brooklyn-based art collective directed us to "destroy" the shoes. And we obliged.
The thing about the Gobstompers is that they're meant to get shredded.
Once these shoes get worn down, their uppers reveal previously obscured red, yellow, and blue layers, creating unique pairs of shoes informed by their owners' personal wear patterns.
It's a nifty trick that recalls Lance Mountain's Jordan 1, Maison Margiela's painted shoes, and other painted footwear that loses its uppers through wear. Except MSCHF & Fallon's Gobstompers are tough AF and meant to be literally worn down.
Before getting into it, we asked the commenters on Highsnobiety's Tiktok to recommend a few methods of destruction.
Skating them, as was the intended design, is unfortunately out of the question 'cuz we need to see results asap.
But, once we got some folks asking us to blow them up with dynamite, we knew we'd have to turn to simpler methods.
With no C4 in hand, our Tiktok and Instagram managers attacked the shoes with cheese graters, knives, scissors, anything sharp.
Unfortunately, I think MSCHF made the Gobstomper too tough: we could hardly scuff them at first. Good news for skaters, though.
Only once the dremel tool came out did we make any real progress.
The end result is far from the ripped-up mess we were expecting but they're still quite handsome, if I do say so myself.
Splotchy panels of hidden color were exposed once the Gobstomper got torn apart, from the midsole to the toebox and beyond. An impressive vivacity was laid bare, with different hues appearing the deeper we dug.
If you got your own Gobstomper, we obviously recommend wearing them. They'll look better that way.
But for the sake of delicious experimentation, we just had to see how many drill bits it took to get to the center of the Gobstompers. Turns out, quite a few.
