The internet has made the world a smaller place, yet there are still borders and boundaries to be hurdled. This past fall I contacted German clog designer Julia Lipinsky with an eye on featuring her unique vision of wooden footwear. But my total inability to communicate in German and her lack of fluency in English has delayed this post from seeing the light of day for months. But enough! It's time to give her clogs their place in the sun. And so I'm beginning this feature with a series of bullet points painstakingly gleaned from articles auf Deutsche about Ms. Lipinsky and then segueing into our e-mail interview haltingly conducted via my questions in English translated for her to work with by regular reader Stella Mayfair, then her answers in German translated back into English for us all to enjoy by regular reader Frederik Sisa (the blogger behind The Fashionoclast). There's a fascinating story in there between the missed declensions and fractured word choices. And, of course, the pictures of her shoes speak a thousand words...in multiple languages!
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• Julia Lipinsky grew up in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein, bordered on the east and west by the Baltic Sea and the North Sea and on the north by Denmark. Says Ms. Lipinsky in an article in Bild, "The proximity to Scandinavia brought me close to clogs even in youth."
• She studied fashion design in the Netherlands, in Bremen, Germany, and in Berlin.
• She launched her label Zabot in 2004 with her first wooden shoe designs. That collection of clogs won her the Brand New for Style award at ISPO, the international trade fair for sporting goods and sports fashion held in Münich.
• Her clog designs have been heralded for being chic and flashy as well as for having nothing in common with the traditional chunky unisex clog. Of her narrow, pointed toe construction and her lavishly detailed upper, Ms. Lipinsky says, "I wanted a mix of traditional clogs and cowboy boots."
• As for what the future holds for her clog ideas from the past, she writes,
The past clog-idea is.....yes, past, because I have learned to make "real" shoes and I´m fascinated with doing that. But I´m still in love with clogs and interested in everything that has to do with them. In the future i will work together with the brand "Berkemann". I will make my designs on their wooden soles.
• Happily she went on to ask, "What else do you want to know??"
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ECHID: It sounds as though you created your first batch of clogs as just a concept project, perhaps for a school assignment. And then you found yourself thinking, "I've put so much work into creating these shoes, it's a shame not to market and sell them." Is that how your label Zabot-Schuhe was born?
JULIA LIPINSKY: No, I started with the clogs, because I was in contact with a bag and purse maker, who wanted to process his leather scraps, and I had always had the idea of designing clogs. So we got together. Actually, he had the money and the sales contacts. He originally wanted to buy me the designs. But when I began to design wood soled shoes, I was hooked.
Images from The Virtual Shoe Museum. Visit their site for better resolution.
ECHID: What attracted you to creating shoes in the first place? You received degrees in fashion design and plastic sculpture. How did your wind up making clogs?
JULIA LIPINSKY: At first I thought clogs were easy to design, and because I had no idea of what would be proper construction, I thought to myself that I get it. But to develop a functional wood sole there's a lot to consider about ergonomics and anatomy. (Had I known, I would never have tried it!) But now it's actually the perfect hybrid of my two jobs, fashion and sculpture. Initially I treated the shoe as a just a sculpture, only portable.
I always had the vision, the classical wooden shoes (as I knew from my childhood) with a new, more fashionable shape. Also, I wanted to create a boot with a wooden sole. I find running in bare feet on wooden soles fantastic!
ECHID: Those first clogs have given way to a leather based clog style that marries a wooden insole to a leather covered platform and heel. How did that transition to more traditional footwear materials come about?
JULIA LIPINSKY: It evolved. I learned the traditional craft of shoemaking, and with my new knowledge, I naturally wanted to try other things. I found that birch plywood sole I like in Denmark and was thrilled. It's made from recyclable timber pressed in thin soles in layers and formed into a foot shape. I have long experimented with this sole with much time and money invested. I thought it would be a completely new direction, but they turned out to be very expensive ..... the project died.
ECHID: Your bio suggests that you had as much fun planning and executing the runway presentations for your designs as you had creating your footwear in the first place. Compared to making shoes, having a show must have felt so much more immediate.
JULIA LIPINSKY: One of my strengths is the presentation. I always know exactly how to stage the photos or how to style the models in everything they'll wear, etc. Just as in fashion shows. It's so much fun to develop the appropriate ways to present my products.
ECHID: What's your fascination with the American west? You've incorporated bits of cowboy boot design in your clogs. Your leather shoes feature faux spurs. You even created a fur covered pony boot. Where did this passion find its origin?
JULIA LIPINSKY: I do not know the American West. I like the slanted heels of cowboy boots, and I like the course is that one of the wear cowboy boots.Die_Sporen, are out of my logo, the whole idea of the hoof boots has to do with it. My vision is to recap the big city ponies and race horses, meant humorously. In the case of hoof boots on the thought of the grotesque. Run without end, I wanted to try.
ECHID: Readers of my blog seem to comprehend the power and energy that footwear can carry in our lives. How do you define the empowerment that footwear can confer? Or would you use another term to describe it?
JULIA LIPINSKY: "Power" would be too aggressive. I find beautiful shoes unbelievable. "Passionate" shoes can complete the outfit. And I think that women—if you wear shoes with heels (and the heel is not too high), they are one with your body—and women become unbelievably sexy. I've worked with shoes for 7 years now, learning to create what I wanted. I put a lot of heart and a lot of money in the development, just so I could have the pleasure of wearing wonderful shoes I couldn't buy anywhere else.
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[On my feet today: those over the knee Steve Madden clog boots, style name: Gwenn. I couldn't justify the purchase when they first went on sale for more that 300 bucks. But when they cropped up on Overstock.com discounted to just over a hundred, I knew they were calling my name.]
These should go on the list...
I couldn't quite decipher the website. Do you know where these might be sold (online)?
Posted by: HB | 02/01/2011 at 12:19 AM
Sad to say, I believe Ms. Lipinsky discontinued her innovative clogs in 2008. And from what I understood in the interview, I'm not sure if she's still producing the leather shoes found on her website. My best recommendation is to contact her directly via the Contact page of her Zabot site. If I here more from her due to today's post, I'll let her know she has some fans out here.
Posted by: Lindsey Cochran | 02/01/2011 at 01:03 AM