{"id":1153932,"date":"2025-12-17T17:10:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1153932"},"modified":"2025-12-17T17:10:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:10:01","slug":"paracia-is-the-perfect-brand-for-the-freaky-shoe-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1153932","title":{"rendered":"Paracia Is the Perfect Brand for the Freaky Shoe Era"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I remember the first time I saw a Paracia shoe. Frederik Berner K\u00fchl, who had collaborated with the brand through his namesake label, was showing me a pair of Paracia\u2019s Non-Safety Shoe, a contemporary version of the footwear worn by builders and construction workers across the world. The shoe had a glossy leather upper, a protective rubber toe cap, and an athletic Vibram outsole. It was somehow a formal dress shoe and<\/em> a functional utilitarian shoe in one. It was the type of shoe I\u2019d seen a thousand times, but reinterpreted and contextualized in a completely mind-boggling way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were renovating our store, and I started seeing that shoe around me,\u201d says Knu Kim, one of Paracia\u2019s co-founders. \u201cAnd then I was with an architect friend, and I saw that they wore those shoes when they went on site visits. There are a lot of people working in construction in Madrid, so I often saw people wearing those particular shoes.\u201d Surrounded by this functional silhouette, Kim decided to rework it. The resulting shoe, with a Derby upper and sporty outsole, also reminded the designer of his youth growing up in Busan \u2014\u00a0\u201ca port city, quite rough,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was no education of design, there was no art. But I grew up with shoes like that.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Paracia<\/div>\n

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Paracia was founded almost a decade ago as a collaboration between Kim and a childhood friend still based in Korea. For a while, the brand didn\u2019t go anywhere. The two friends were both working full-time jobs and separated by thousands of miles. But a couple of years ago, Kim decided it was time to refocus on Paracia by designing a new collection and relaunching. \u201cThe idea is that we\u2019re making versatile shoes that you can wear in different moments of your life,\u201d Kim says.<\/p>\n

The brand leans toward more formal styles, with Derbies alongside zip-up boots and hiking-inspired styles. Its motto is \u201cenchant the mundane,\u201d a phrase printed on the footbed of every pair of shoes they make. All of the brand\u2019s silhouettes are based on well-known, everyday shoes with a slight twist \u2014 something that throws off the traditional look. It\u2019s a kind of uncanny valley approach to functional and safe footwear.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Paracia, Courtesy of Paracia<\/div>\n

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From this current vantage point in footwear, the Paracia relaunch couldn\u2019t have been timed better. After a decade of sneaker dominance, people have started to look toward a post-sneaker world. The immediate replacement was loafers, which quickly became ubiquitous amidst the prep revival. But the world is moving on again, and consumers are embracing freakier shoes, a process that arguably began with Tabis and now covers all manner of silhouettes. Paracia\u2019s exaggerated proportions, square toes, and shoes designed for builders have made the brand perfect for this new era.<\/p>\n

Among Paracia\u2019s offerings, there\u2019s also the Derby, complete with an oversized welt and exaggerated heel. The Cove boot is accentuated by a zigzag stitch running up its center, and the moc-toe Buster comes with a square toe. But the Non-Safety Shoe, which arose from the\u00a0 Berner K\u00fchl partnership, is still the most emblematic of the brand\u2019s grounded pragmatism. \u201cOur collaboration grew out of a shared appreciation for industrial honesty,\u201d Berner K\u00fchl says. The Non-Safety \u201cborrows the language of protective footwear but removes its formal obligation, allowing the silhouette to exist in a more everyday, human context.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Paracia<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s also the closest Paracia has gotten to a sneaker, which itself is a category that Kim has mixed feelings about. \u201cSneakers are such a saturated market,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re shoes you buy and consume then throw them away; it\u2019s always about having something new. I didn\u2019t want to build a brand based on that. Our shoes can be repaired and resoled and worn forever.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Paracia<\/div>\n

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Other brands are also reflecting this move toward weirder, unconventional silhouettes. Danish label Mfpen has its Reunion Derby, a classic silhouette that is altered by a square toe, and Parisian footwear brand Adieu is known for playing with sizes and shapes. Like Paracia, both brands have taken traditional and well-known shoes and tweaked them. The changes aren\u2019t so drastic that the shoes become unwearable, but they still set them apart from the security of a conventional Derby or boot. These new approaches often combine functional and formal styles, introducing workwear details like toe caps and chunky soles to traditional leather shoes.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Paracia<\/div>\n

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For Paracia, creating interesting combinations is also a kind of business model. The brand has pushed the boundaries even further through its collaborations with emerging designers including Carter Young and JEONGLI. There\u2019s also a collaboration with Canadian designer Colin Meredith in the works. \u201cThey\u2019re all very different brands, but I like seeing how our shoes can fit with different styles,\u201d Kim says. He points to the different touches brought by each partner, from Berner K\u00fchl widening the Derby silhouette even further to the distressed fabrics used by Carter Young. Old silhouettes chopped and screwed with new details \u2014\u00a0and new collaborators. This might just be the Paracia way, which bodes exciting possibilities for the future of freakier, interesting shoes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/highsnobiety.com\/p\/paracia-ushering-in-new-age-of-freakier-footwear\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to stay in the loop?We’ve got you coveredDownload the Highsnobiety\u00a0App now I remember the first time I saw a Paracia shoe. Frederik Berner K\u00fchl, who had collaborated with the brand through his namesake label, was showing me a pair of Paracia\u2019s Non-Safety Shoe, a contemporary version of the footwear worn by builders and construction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1153933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-1153932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-highsnobiety-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1153932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1153933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1153932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1153932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1153932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}