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Edward Chiu
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Every adidas sneaker is destined to become a jazzed-up hybrid dress shoe. The German sportswear giant is on a tear, slapping formal heeled soles onto Sambas, reconstructing handball sneakers into suede loafers, and enlisting Italian artisans to create dapper Superstars. This is wildly wedding-appropriate stuff for a famed maker of running shoes and tracksuits. 

Brain Dead, itself behind an expansive line of heeled adidas bowling shoes, has been at the forefront of it all. Now it's cooking up something even stranger than a black-tie adidas sneaker, and Highsnobiety contributor Edward Chiu got an early look at it. 

The Californian streetwear label’s newest concoction is a new-school version of the OG scaley adidas Predator football boot from 1994 —  known as a cleat by those who call the sport soccer — except with the sole studs replaced by a thick heeled sole you’d expect on a leather derby. Oh, yeah, and it’s a Disney collaboration.

Turning a legendary football boot worn by legends of the game, like Paul Gascoigne and David Beckham, into a hybrid formal shoe wasn’t crazy enough for Brain Dead. It got one of the world's largest entertainment conglomerates to add the final touch: A Mickey Mouse hangtag. 

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Have you ever heard of Mickey Mouse dress shoes built from football boots? Me neither. It’s a contender for most unexpected collaboration of the year, and leaks suggest there’ll be a full Disney x adidas x Brain Dead football kit to match.

But for all the concept’s bizarreness, the as-yet-unreleased shoes are pretty slick. Football boots make for surprisingly swaggy dress shoes, something a small section of cobblers has been proving over the last few years. Brain Dead’s version, with its leather mudguard countering the sportiness of the rubber notches, is yet more proof. 

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Although I’m still a little confused about where exactly Mickey Mouse ties into it all.

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