Inspired by Tadao Ando, a self-taught Japanese architect and winner of the Pritzker Prize, our square toe flats seek to emulate the beauty of simplicity in his work, which is said to have a haiku effect, emphasizing empty space. On a visit to Naoshima in 2016, these design principles of minimalism got us thinking about what that might look like in a shoe.
His majority use of concrete and ability to give it a sense of weightlessness fired our imagination. In the same way that a shoe supports the weight of our bodies, Ando’s buildings seem to be able to support cement and float at the same time. With these design principles in mind our square toe flats became part of the Manolita DNA.
