EV Creepers

In the vein of "everything East Village gritty gets recycled by the luxury industrial complex and slapped with a swollen price tag," I've been thinking for weeks now about the new "It" shoe, the Prada creeper.


Prada Creeper

It sells for $795 and there's a waiting list to get it. The Post calls it clownish and ugly, and says that a lot of "fashion-forward" New Yorkers are clamoring for it.

If it looks familiar, it's because this type of shoe was all over the East Village throughout the 1990s, before the neighborhood became Prada-fabulous. For years, it seemed like every little cobbler shop's window was packed with such Frankenshoes, every sole slapped with platform upon platform, some reaching insane, ankle-breaking heights of towering improbability.

Now, many of those cobbler shops have been forced out of business and replaced with things like vegan ice-cream shops and boutiques. But if you still have a hankering for jumbo platforms, you can get them custom-made at East Village Shoe Repair on St. Mark's Place.



The shop is a grungy little nest packed with sneakers and shoes in various forms of hybridization--Nikes sprouting Lucite stiletto heels, checkerboard Vans decked in leopard print, Chuck Taylors elongated into giraffe-like knee-highs. It's like walking into the lab of mad scientist. They love this place in Japan.



The guys here will add however many soles you want to whatever footwear you want--and it won't cost you $795. Well, technically, at about $20 per sole, you could spend $795, but then you'd be towering on about 40 layers--more than enough to crush the Prada creepers with your monster shoes.


this photo clipped from Another Mag