yamamoto.jpg

I know this is a famous designer and all, but dang, I can’t quite understand the concept of these Yohji Yamamoto ’sports shoes’ (now mercifully on sale, 80% off). What we have here is a silver fabric thong with an anklet, or possibly a fabric bootie with the heel and toes cut off, on a footbed not dissimilar to the tracks of a heavy military tank. Apart from the notion that you can play sports in thongs (really?), the question is open to what kind of sports can you actually play in these? Why, the possibilities seem practically boundless. Let’s see–you can play:

- ‘who trips first’, in which competitors will cover the distance between two telegraph poles, and whoever trips first buys a round of sakes for everybody (and possibly a pair of proper sneakers for the winner);

- ‘ouch I’ve stubbed my toe’, an off-track race meant to test endurance to pain rather than long-distance stamina;

- and an all-time favorite, ‘thong the spot,’ a version of curling in which you use the soles of these shoes to polish ice for the curling stone. Unsurprisingly, this has the highest incidence of bruising.