Sleeves Magazine Men's Fashion Week Special Men's Fashion Week June 2016 | Page 165

thing to point out until you imagine
working day and night on a new shoe
just to release it into the world and
hope people don’t wear it all wrong. It
must be tiring, or at least nervewracking.

And Diego agrees. “It’s a part of a system,
and I really believe in cross-pollination.
These things don’t work in isolation.” It is
this wholesome, well-adjusted attitude to
his audience which is most refreshing
about Vanassibara. He understands his
place in the ecosystem and plays to his
strengths. But it turns out he’s not afraid
of pushing a few buttons either. I ask in
passing about the significance of all the
broken glass in his installation, just as a
shattering sound plays through the
speakers in the room. He tells me, “It’s an
element of danger, a sensorial experience.
I think danger’s quite sexy. And also I like
building things, static things. And maybe
that’s why I like architecture, why I like
shoes. I like things that retain the shape
that I decided they had to be. I feel a little
bit like a dictator.” Well if that’s the case,
Diego Vanassibara is the most sotly
spoken, most artistic, most thoroughly
friendly dictator I’ve ever had the
pleasure to meet.

Vanassibara’s business partner Gotzon,
a delightful Finnish chap with an
intelligent face and a pilot’s license,
chips in to say, “We get surprised
sometimes. But positively surprised!
You have a certain concept in your
head, but it’s still different from
actually seeing the end customer in the
store and seeing how they use the
product, how they feel about it, and
even who the end customer is. ‘Oh this
person bought a pair of our shoes?
Look how he’s wearing it!’”
Sleeves Magazine