Shoe fans who read our post last month on Moscow's Fashion Night Out may recall the Shoeblogger highlight of the night (in every sense): the incredible sky-high, heel-free, skin-tight black boots below.
You may also recall that I was too overwhelmed to actually gather any useful information – such as, for example, what label they were. McQueen? Berardi? Something bespoke from Berlin, Tokyo or Hollywood Boulevard? Well, time to put the record straight. Here are those Black Unicorn shoes in detail (below), and here is 18-year-old Andrey Simakov – who made them.
We met up in daylight a couple of weeks ago and I asked Andrey how a teenager from Ryazan comes to be creating the kind of footwear more often seen on YouTube or Style.com. "I first thought of making shoes when I saw the Alexander McQueen show Plato's Atlantis," he told me. The S/S 2010 collection featured shoes, including the Armadillo, instantly adopted by Lady Gaga but equally coveted elsewhere. "There were so many I wanted," says Andrey, " but I had no opportunity or money to buy them – so I decided to do it myself!"
It was an area he admits was "totally unfamiliar" to him. But, with an impressively thorough and fearless attitude, Andrey started reading everything he could find about the craft of cobblery. He attended workshops and collected as much information as he could lay his hands on about McQueen's Armadillo shoes. It took him three months to make his first pair. He was 16 years old.
The Black Unicorns have a 9cm (3.5-inch) platform and the heel – well, if it existed it would be an eye-watering 21cm (8 inches.) As you can see from the pictures, Andrey wears them as nonchalantly as if they were Converse. Can he walk in them? Do you really need to ask? Video evidence below:
Since 2009 Andrey has made six pairs of shoes and is working on the seventh. He showed me another of his creations, the Dark Jesus platform (below).
Dark Jesus does have a heel – 22cm (8.5 inches) of heel, to be precise – and a 12cm (nearly 5 inches) platform sole. The shoe's other feature is the shiny black rubber dripping over the muzzle (there's no other word for it) and down the heel.
Despite being frighteningly young, and self-taught, (or perhaps because of this), Andrey has a very specific aesthetic approach to shoe design. The classic McQueens combine baroque shapes with extravagant surface ornamentation, but Andrey is clearly most interested in form. The impact lies entirely in the shape of the shoe, the height of the platform, and the way it wraps around the foot. Whereas a bejeweled pair of Armadillos is definitely womenswear, Andrey Simakov's platforms could be worn by anyone (anyone with a head for heights, that is).
Unsurprisingly, Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness are among Andrey's inspirations, along with James Dean, Kate Moss and Patti Smith. He admires "their manners, behaviour – they are all very individual." Currently at university (not studying fashion, although he does work part-time in the business), Andrey says he would like eventually to have his own atelier and sell his shoes. He has an exhibition coming up in Moscow and his home town of Ryazan. Meantime you can follow his progress on his blog: simakovshoes.blogspot.com. Catch him now – if you can.
