He Made Dior's Shoes Brilliant. What Can He Do With Birkenstock's Sneakers? (EXCLUSIVE)
French footwear designer Thibo Denis knows more about fancy shoes than just about anyone. Before joining Pharrell at Louis Vuitton in 2024, Denis spent six years overseeing a sizable majority of Dior's brilliant men’s footwear offerings, including high-profile collaborations like Dior's Jordan 1 sneaker and Birkenstock sandals.
This makes Denis a rare two-time Birkenstock collaborator. But never quite like this.
Denis is the first guest designer for Ensemble 1774, a new endeavor under Birkenstock's 1774 luxury line that invites external collaborators to shape Birkenstock newness.
And Denis does indeed have newness in mind.
When you think "Birkenstock," you probably think "sandal." Not Denis; he thought "sneaker."
"Birkenstock has always been famous in the US as a resting pair. It was the shoe you wear after effort," Denis tells Highsnobiety. His idea was to create Birkenstocks that could be used for that effort. “I tried to put everything that I love and have been developing as an aesthetic signature, [including] hiking and climbing elements, into the shoe," he adds.
Birkenstock has always sold sneakers but Denis' skateboarding-flavored designs are a world apart. For Ensemble 1774, Denis designed three shoes: the Uerzell, a backless slip-on mule with a boosted base; the Stroedt, an ergonomically sleek low-top sneaker; and the Goerlitz, a puffy lace-up sneaker shaped by Birkenstock's signature cork footbed and toe. And though they're unlike anything else in the Birkenstock catalog, they're also not far removed from their forebears.
"My love for Birkenstock was extremely linked to the toe and the shape," says Denis, noting that all of his designs retain that recognizable Birkenstock bulk. "The tooling was mainly focused on the codes of the house, like the cork and the black outsole."
The resulting shoes, available soon on Birkenstock 1774's website, reflect Denis' prior oeuvre with their head-turning hues, luxe materials, chunky soles, and even chunkier laces. But though Denis is now synonymous with modern luxury footwear as we know it, his background (and even his introduction to Birkenstock) is quite quaint.
"My mom comes from the countryside in France and was always wearing [Birkenstock] clogs for gardening," Denis says. "I was like, ‘These look so weird.’ The idea of coming to a family meeting or the office wearing Birkenstocks seems very conventional today, but back in 2004, it was not."
That fascination with Birkenstock's inherent quirk lead Denis to ensure each collaborative shoe was still "obviously a Birkenstock," even as wild as they are. He just hopes that it's also obvious that it's his work.
"The best compliment ever?" he says. "Even if my name isn't on it, it still looks like Thibo."
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