The Mojito Shoe

I've mentioned Julian Hakes and Hakes Associates before in my blog and I probably will keep mentioning him as I find his work stunning and I am in awe of what he creates and continues to create. I am lucky enough to have him as a neighbor and a friend, so I get updates on what he is working on and I see him outside crafting things, holding things up to the light to see a different perspective on a model, I even spent an evening helping him sculpt a bridge in the snow. The pure passion of design is what drives Julian and this clearly results in some amazing creations. Most recently The Mojito Shoe. I have seen this come together over the past few months and it was initially hard to get my head around how it would work without seeing an image. I need not wonder anymore though as Julian has now had the shoe fabricated and photographed. So I thought I would share it with you on the week of it's release. I love the shape and colour, the form is divine but yet it is still functional. I think the only problem I would have is that I think it's too beautiful to wear and think that it should take centre stage mounted on the wall of my living room so I can sit and admire the shapes it casts from different angles.

Here's how Julian explains the creation of The Mojito Shoe

"One late summer night in the studio I was thinking about the design of shoes in general. I wondered why there was the need for a foot plate in shoes such as high heels. When I look at a foot print on sand it is very clear to see that the main force goes to the heel and ball. With a high heel providing the heel is supported, even by standing on a wooden block the foot naturally ’spans’ the gap naturally, with bones and tendons. The foot has its own inbuilt strength and support so why duplicate this. You would not have a jumper with rigid arms between elbow and wrist. So this raised the question, if the design of a shoe was an evolution of the early sandal and how can new materials and design techniques provide new solution?

So I set to exploring this question in a similar way to how I would design a bridge, examining the forces and looking at the most simple, elegant yet poetic expression of the forces at play within the materials used. With this approach I then set about wrapping my foot in tracing paper, then binding it up in masking tape and then drawings various geometries onto and over the form of my foot. The next stage was rather dangerous as I had to cut the shape off my foot with a scalpel and not damage the pattern or my foot. The design this produced is a single wrapped geometry which starts under the ball of the foot and then over the bridge, then sweeping down below the heel before then twisting back on itself to provide the support for the heel and ankle. This form felt light and airy on the foot. So we called it the ‘Mojito’ as it was rather like a twist of lime skin. The material choice is simple: The shoe is a laminate with Carbon fibre for the core which gives the shoe its spring and strength, leather on the foot side and rubber on the walking wearing side. 3 materials, each doing a specific job."