Stroll into any Fluevog retailer—from Vancouver to Amsterdam—and you are feeling it instantly: this isn’t vogue as regular. It’s half artwork gallery, half religious sanctuary, half joyful riot.
For 55 years, Vancouver-born legendary designer John Fluevog has been quietly reshaping what a shoe can imply, constructing a world the place craftsmanship, whimsy, and radical self-acceptance stand on the middle. Not like most vogue designers, Fluevog by no means chased traits, movie star approval, or industrial polish. As a substitute, he pursued the stranger, extra soulful path and made magical, impressed sneakers that really feel alive, sneakers that whisper to the wearer that you simply’re already sufficient precisely as you might be.
His earliest creations within the Seventies artsy Gastown part of Vancouver, made with firm co-founder Peter Fox, shortly turned a magnet for musicians, theater children, religious seekers, and anybody who didn’t fairly match the mainstream mildew. Many years later, the fan listing contains drag royalty, artists, Woman Gaga, collectors, and Jack White, who owns customized red-and-white Fluevogs and joined Fluevog’s anniversary celebrations with a collaboration: The Idol Jack. Yellow straps, embossed leather-based, metallic {hardware}, logos stamped into the footbed—it’s a boot that captures the playful, alt-rock vitality each are recognized for.
At this time, 55 years in, Fluevog stays a designer who listens extra to instinct than trade. His work remains to be made in family-owned factories, nonetheless sculptural, nonetheless spiritually inflected, and nonetheless a love letter to the individuals who really feel slightly completely different.
I spoke with John about craft, internal worlds, group, dyslexia, and the shocking methods sneakers can educate you who you might be.
How have you ever constructed your fabulous, very distinctive shoe firm?
There aren’t many corporations the place the proprietor can be the designer, and due to that, I’ve full autonomy. I can do what I really feel like doing—and I design from feeling. I’ll discover one thing, cease, take into consideration why I seen it, after which comply with that thread. Anna Sui as soon as stated to me, “I’ve been noticing this,” and it helped me notice how creativity begins with consideration. If we cease and spot, the creativity is already there.
I don’t take a look at traits. Each shoe we make is made by hand, in family-owned factories. We all know these households; we all know their children. The craft issues. Particularly in locations just like the little manufacturing unit in Peru the place my Peruvian sneakers are made—these persons are true craftsmen. So humanity isn’t simply in my designs; it runs via each hand that touches the shoe. That’s uncommon.
What’s the origin story?
The corporate has a quite simple ethos: I’m telling folks they’re okay. I grew up dyslexic, and I didn’t assume I used to be worthy or good as a result of I couldn’t switch issues from one web page to a different with out errors. My enterprise turned a car to comprehend that I am okay—and I need my prospects to really feel that too. You would possibly assume you’re bizarre, however you’re not. You’re precisely as you had been meant to be. No mistake was made.
Who buys your sneakers?
People who find themselves effective being themselves. Individuals who don’t must comply with guidelines another person invented.
Typically one thing simply seems proper to me, and I can’t clarify why. When a design is appropriate, all the small print come collectively and it begins to talk—actually converse. It’s like taking a look at a chunk of artwork throughout the room. The colours, the traces, the feel…it provides you pleasure. My prospects reply to that pleasure.
Do you journey rather a lot?
I don’t must journey to journey. I can go ahead or backward in my thoughts. I can decide up energies from locations I haven’t been. Journey is exterior and inside. That inside world is religious—I can transfer via time there.
After 55 years within the shoe enterprise, I don’t really feel much less artistic. In reality, I really feel extra artistic. That’s a blessing.
Your sneakers really feel sculptural, whimsical, like an antidote to the heaviness of the world.
I attempt to maintain seeing past the bodily world—into one other place. After I’m there, I’m not bothered by what’s occurring right here, as a result of it’ll fade. It at all times modifications.
What media evokes you?
I haven’t been studying a lot—it’s laborious to pay attention generally. However I’ve been watching interval items. I really like the backgrounds, the settings, the way in which persons are depicted. I take pleasure in when a movie tries to grasp what folks had been considering then, as an alternative of giving every part a contemporary twist. I’ve additionally been taking a look at lots of historic sneakers.
What’s your artistic life like?
I discover my life abnormal—I’m a watcher. I don’t assume in black and white. Creativity, to me, lives in one other world fully. After I open shops, after I watch how factories function, after I take heed to my workers… I’m influenced by all these little feedback and moments.
I really feel like a conduit for what’s occurring round me. My purpose could be to stroll totally in that spirit. Stroll by religion. Stroll within the great world.
