Carol Christian Poell's U-Jack prosthetic footwear
Really quick, I want to warn the faint of heart to possibly skip this one - these pages can get a little gnarly on occasion, but the master Carol Christian Poell’s most recent iteration of U-Jack prosthetic “sneakers” are so aesthetically obscene and hardcore that simply thrusting them upon you without prior warning seems callous. Then again, there’s probably a good portion of you reading this only because you want me to celebrate the most brutally transcendent pieces of modern craftsmanship, in which case, you’re in for a serious treat!
Here’s about as much as I know about Austrian designer Carol Christian Poell, an elusive yet cult-worshiped figure who’s maintained an alluring air of mystery across multiple decades1. For example, unlike every other designer I admire, I’ve never even seen a picture of the man (a cis-male named “Carol”, I love it!). I know that he’s been making his willfully-obscure garments since the late ‘90s, but they didn’t really catch on with any sort of audience until the goth-ninja avant-garde of the late ‘00s (of which I would consider myself a skeptical-yet-dutiful follower) caught wind. I know that he doesn’t release seasons of clothing in any traditional manner, instead elaborating and extrapolating upon previous ideas and concepts year after year and releasing new batches of clothes whenever he feels like it. His key concepts include a rawness of materials (from industrial rubber to parachute-grade synthetics and delicate “broken-needle” linens), brutalist simplicity, impeccable construction, dramatic mutations and, somewhere underneath it all, a po-faced sense of humor that is actually quite hilarious and playful if you’re willing to find it. Take, for example, the iconic “Mainstream-Downstream” show he did back in 2004: after passing out flyers that promised a fashion show at a specific location, curious attendees appeared at the address - an empty building - only to notice the bodies of models in head-to-toe CCP floating down the river across the street. Glorious!
So go ahead, feast your eyes on these monstrosities: the most recent edition of CCP’s U-Jack prosthetic sneakers2. Absolutely gruesome! The carbonfiber soles received the iconic CCP rubber-dip treatment (and are folded over in a sardonic “air sole” approximation); the drips slowly wear down through use, acclimating their shape to the wearer’s natural gait. Why “prosthetic”, you ask? Well, that refers to the titanium under-plating that pokes through the leather3 in various spots, perhaps the most perfect unintended Terminator 2 cosplay shoes a person could ever hope to find. I’ve been appreciating CCP designs for at least a dozen years now and I’m still taken aback by the feral beauty of these boots, which aren’t any sort of visionary breakthrough so much as a perfect distillation of Poell’s aesthetic.
“I guess they look pretty wild, but are they comfortable?”, you reasonably ask? OF COURSE THEY’RE NOT COMFORTABLE! Comfort and functional wearability seem to come in last on Poell’s list of considerations, and honestly, I love him all the more for it. Years ago some guy on the old Style Zeitgeist message board shared a story where he was wearing a particularly restrictive CCP blazer while driving a car and, upon needing to made a swift and sudden left turn, he found himself nearly unable to do it, so restricted were his shoulders. Please move “my jacket made it impossible to safely operate my Nissan Sentra” to the top of my “reasons I died” list. Along with a pair of pants so stiff they can stand up on their own accord, Poell makes “chain-seamed” garments which involve a highly delicate interlocking weave (as seen on this CCP blazer), and if you dare to squat down, kick a soccer ball or even simply get out of your chair too quickly while wearing a pair of chain-seamed pants, there’s a good chance you’re going to pop at least a few of those stitches, which are probably too horrifically genius for any local tailor to successfully repair. How many designers do you know who can claim danger as a constant presence in their clothing? It can’t be long until he releases a limited “lighter fluid soaked” turtleneck - if anyone could sell it, it’s CCP.
I probably shouldn’t be as surprised as I am that the current high-fashion gatekeeper labels seem mostly content to shuffle around chunks of nostalgia and slightly re-organize their DNA before selling them back to us at an exponentially higher price. I absolutely appreciate the newness of inventive-tech gorp-wear designers like Acronym and Arc’teryx Veilance, brands that integrate your iPad’s functionality into thermal-insulated snowboarder pants and stuff, but as far as fashion as an expression of unprecedented artistic beauty, I’m baffled at how few contemporary examples exist. Do you really want to see a new variant of the same-old Nike basketball sneaker, this one with holographic designs on the sides or a bigger air bubble in the sole? What does that inspire besides routine, ho-hum commerce? Maybe the masses simply don’t realize that Carol Christian Poell exists - highly possible, due to his elusive, non-commercial nature - or, perhaps they don’t have the ungodly sums of money necessary to secure his pieces (he certainly ain’t doing this for charity). It’s an impediment for sure, unless you’re Jude Law or Seal, but for someone like me, the hustle of finding a solid used CCP item at a non-bank-breaking price makes it all the more special, and is possible for those with persistence and savvy. Will I ever find these sneaks (in my size) for less than four figures? Unlikely, but not impossible, so I’m keeping the dream alive for now.
I actually have a friend who managed to meet Carol Christian Poell in person once or twice, but when I pressed him for any sort of interesting anecdotes or intel, he managed to offer nothing besides “his wife was lovely” or something disappointingly boring like that. Honestly, maybe I don’t even want to know about the man’s personal life anyway.
They seem more like boots to me, but what do I know?
I don’t know what type of leather this particular pair is made from, but I’m guessing kangaroo, a material he’s used frequently in the past including other pairs in this recent collection. I told you he’s nuts!