It Was the World's Most Normal Shoe Until COMME des GARÇONS Freaked It
The Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 isn’t a complicated sneaker. This thin-soled shoe, left practically unchanged since its debut at the 1968 Olympic Games, has the streamlined build of an antiquated runner, which is primarily what fuels its current popularity among enjoyers of barely-there footwear.
It's very normal, in other words. Until COMME des GARÇONS utilized the Onitsuka Tiger as the base for a series of footwear oddities. And even then, the normalness remains.... mostly.
As part of the COMME des GARÇONS holiday collections that release throughout December, the Japanese fashion label brought some artful updates to Onitsuka Tiger’s Mexico 66 sneaker.
With a black and white Mexico 66 as its starting point, COMME des GARÇONS added peculiar twists that range from a yellow exoskeleton of overlapping circles attached to the shoe by silver rivets to an entirely new facade, an unembellished yellow leather sheath complete with buckle. You know that normal shoe remains underneath the stark strangeness occuring above so it never becomes entirely inscrutable.
Not all the updates are quite so far-reaching, however: one pair simply wears co-branded yellow laces and another is graced by yellow paint splatter.
The shoes are accompanied by an eight-piece apparel collection, also black and yellow, with graphics painted onto T-shirts so they purposefully crack over time, a typically COMME des GARÇONS asymmetric shirt, and even some Onitsuka Tiger balloon trousers — another quintessentially CDG silhouette.
Again, the normal is reimagined as slightly less normal, not so much altering the familiar forms as much as reconsidering them totally fresh. The shape of the shoes and tees aren't hard to grasp but everything happening on them is, making for a satisfyingly distinct spin on the classics.
Japan gets first dibs at the goods with a series of domestic COMME des GARÇONS stores hosting opening special installations for the release starting December 1. But these’ll be joined by its Paris and New York stores from December 5 to December 28, taking CDG's Onitsuka Tiger specialties worldwide.
This is all quite new, even for COMME des GARÇONS, a company that specializes in newness. Despite its innumerous sneaker collaborations, CDG has never collaborated with Onitsuka Tiger before — sure, CDG sub-labels have issued a handful of ASICS collaborations in partnership with Onitsuka Tiger's parent company, but CDG and Onitsuka are first-time partners. 'tis the season.
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