80 Years of Footwear's Weirdest, Most Wonderful Shoe (EXCLUSIVE)
The Paraboot Michael is one of the few truly iconic leather shoes. Let's be real: there aren't many recognizable non-sneaker silhouettes that any one brand can effectively claim as its own. And even in the rare cases in which there are, Paraboot's Michael is the daddy of them all.
80 years since its birth, the Paraboot Michael is finally getting its due.
To commemorate the historic chunkster's big anniversary, Paraboot created the aptly titled "Some Things Never Change" campaign, rolling out with an eight-piece collection of special Michaels that reflect the singular shoe's life throughout the decades.
The Michael perpetually adapted but never actually evolved, because it never had to. It remains one of a kind, whether it's cut from faux-fur pony hair or a techy hybrid of mesh n' suede.
The Michael as we know it was born in 1945, steeped in the traditions of the Alps, though not just those of the French sort.
No, to the east, near the Italian Alps, lies the mountainous Austrian region of Tyrol — also the design locus of contemporaneously stylish-with-substance label Rier — where Tyrolean shoes were born out of a need for hardy daily-drivers.
Paraboot's Michael is the epochal Tyrolean, the first to formalize the style's squashed moc toe for a mass audience. Like all Tyroleans, the Michael was made to work and, as such, that toe is not for show: it's both extra-roomy and extra-tough, no small part due to Paraboot's handsewn Norwegian stitch (or Goodyear welt, depending).
All that history would add up to nothing if the Michael wasn't also a looker. It is, of course, even though divergent message-board posts would indicate that not everyone is in agreement. But part of the Michael's mutable charm lies in its unapologetic, unpretentious good looks. It is certainly weird, with a flattened front that upsets leather footwear conventions, but this gives the Michael exceptional versatility.
It's the rare blue-collar shoe that can be dressed up, though its hard-wearing origins also undergird its all-day any-day usefulness. And you know it's good because, though none of the shoes that preceded the Michael looked like it, plenty of shoes that followed sure did.
Still, because the Michael has long been an acquired taste, it was embraced by those who understood but bewildered those who did not. Mass adoption came slowly, though the Michael always had some pretty devoted champions. Paraboot created collaborative styles with labels like Engineered Garments and YMC, for instance, as the Michael's fame grew.
The footwear reset that was the COVID-19 pandemic helped the Michael became an easy touchstone for dudes in the know.
Its newfound popularity spurned an abundance of fit guides and video breakdowns, normalizing a shoe that had perhaps a tad too much personality for more modest dressers.
How things have changed! Just this year, as the Michael turns 80, trend-reporting platform LYST recorded so many searches for Paraboot's signature shoe that it became the ninth-hottest item for the first quarter of 2025. Not such an acquired taste, anymore.
What happened? Simply put, tastes evolved. Interests broadened. Demand increased for shoes of substance. In the same way that culture finally circled back around to other heritage footwear models, like the Birkenstock Boston clog and Margiela tabi, the Michael didn't have to rise to meet the times. The times rose to meet it, instead.
Some things never change.
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