Every good idea has already been had. All the best hiking shoes have already been designed. Everything that's come after has been, quite literally in the latter case, a retread.
So says od.A, a young footwear brand proud to produce "nothing new."
od.A's shoes are beautiful to behold, streamlined slabs of nappa leather and waxed nubuck that look as much like trail shoes' future as they do their past. (The debut Launch Collection is naturally available exclusively at progressive retailer Dover Street Market.)
Because, as artful as the shoes may be — od.A co-founder Albert Arenas tells me that inspiration came from the restless ingenuity of Issey Miyake, the material genius of Stone Island founder Massimo Osti, and the lived-in feel of interior designer Axel Vervoordt — they're also steeped in historic design cues visible only on closer inspection. The shoes were already seeded to a handful of discerning gents in the outdoorsy-style space and each was duly impressed (or maybe just glad to be sent something fresh).
Founded towards the "end of 2023," Arenas says, and "based between Barcelona and Shanghai," od.A's mission is to bring a little humanity back into a realm that lost it long ago. The great functional footwear of yesteryear was beautifully inelegant: clunky, bulbous, and defined entirely by purpose over aesthetic. And you saw the makers' hands in everything from the silhouettes to even the finishing, where nothing was necessarily perfect. And, yet, they were.
More importantly, they lasted, both as objects and as stylistic touchstones. Attempts to reinvent the trail shoe as something wholly new have largely failed — we circle the same few shapes to this day.
od.A knows this. It seeks to reclaim the untamed edge that's since been focus-grouped out of the realm of performance (not performative) outdoor shoes. Its debut silhouettes appear familiar but are actually not quite: an approach-style shoe's handsewn upper makes it look more like a gentleman walking sneaker than a badass hiker. Vibram's Gironda sole renders the 002 classically tough but the refined upper, made even sleeker by a zippered sheath, is unexpectedly elegant. There's even a convertible outdoor loafer.
It's singular stuff, a welcome breaststroke against the tide of an overcrowded footwear market lousy with microplastics and polyesters. Because the best part of these rugged but sensitive shoes is that, like the trail shoes of old, they're destined to only get better with age.
Let's go back to the beginning. What's od.A origin story?
Albert Arenas: We had worked together in the creative, fashion, and footwear industries for years. We started as [sneaker] collectors. As students, we sought out the shoes we loved and learned from them. We researched the history of each brand and took the shoes apart to study how they were built and understand why some worked, or looked, better than others. That research is still the part we enjoy most.
The brand name feels open to interpretation. Is it?
In a way, yes, although its original meaning is quite specific. The name comes from oda, Spanish for "ode": a tribute. The brand is an ode to the outdoor silhouettes of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, and to the design solutions passed down from one generation of shoes to the next. It also honors ancestral ways of making shoes, and a way of manufacturing built around long-lasting objects.
The name is also an acronym. od.A was born from Outdoor Archive, with the A deliberately set apart so it could take on new meanings over time. Outdoor Artefacts, Outdoor Assembly, Outdoor Anatomy, Outdoor Atmosphere, Outdoor Allegory, and others yet to be defined. We borrow that from wabi-sabi: the acceptance that things change.
So, the name is not open because its meaning is unclear. It is open because it is designed to evolve.
Evolution by looking backwards. Right now, it feels like everyone is looking backwards — the market is saturated with outdoorsy footwear. Does that sort of thing bother you?
The market is a challenge we embraced from the start. We began while "gorpcore" was at its height. We make outdoor-inspired shoes, so we are part of that conversation, but our focus has not changed since: od.A has an anthropological basis. We focus on why certain designs and techniques have lasted, and pay little attention to the shoes going viral. A trend needs a name behind it. A shoe that lasts doesn't.
We call it a denial of fashion egotism. For us, that means no single designer or creative director takes the credit. od.A is teamwork. Each of us does our best in our own field, and none of us needs that credit.
That relates to your mantra of "nothing new," i.e. every shoe walks a trail blazed by every previous shoe. Can you talk more about that mentality?
We don't put history on a pedestal; we rework it. Every design starts from a reference. There is a right kind of newness: the kind you can trace back.
Before we drew the 002.1, we saw how ski boots evolved at an exhibition of historic ski equipment in the Vall de Núria in the Pyrenees. They started as laced mountain boots with a sole shaped to fit the binding. Then, to keep snow and water out, the closure moved to a diagonal, and a single piece of tough leather came to protect the front of the foot. The 002.1 keeps that logic, with a hard ripstop panel over the instep and a sealed, waterproof YKK zip.
Speaking of the process, what was the biggest learning curve?
What we underestimated was time: getting the shoe we had in mind took nearly three years.
Time, indeed. Three years later, how do you define a "good" shoe?
The one you want to wear every day, or the one you miss when you are wearing something else. To get there, comfort comes first; aesthetics always come second. A shoe you wear every day, exposed to the elements, should age well and look better, or at least more personal, with use.
So, it must perform, and the performance we care about most is durability. The form is never finished: the person wearing it completes it.
Let's go a step bigger. Why shoes at all?
Because a shoe is never only an object. Each design began as a tool shaped by what a community needed and came to say something about who wore it. Studying shoes closely taught us that every construction carries that history: the problem it was solving and the people it was made for. That is what captivates us.
We come from different cultures, and a shoe is a shared language, the meeting point where we understand each other.
