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PRODUCT> Niemeyer Inspired By Curvaceous Brazilian Women For His Converse Collection

PRODUCT> Niemeyer Inspired By Curvaceous Brazilian Women For His Converse Collection

Though you might not know it to look at them, Oscar Niemeyer’s new line of sneakers for Converse are apparently inspired by his country’s greatest natural resources, namely its mountains, rivers, and its bodacious women. The Chuck Taylor All Star Hi sneaker is still the classic shape, but on his version Niemeyer has emblazoned one of his most famous quotes, in Portuguese, of course. Here’s the English translation:

“It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve – the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman.”

The solid red tongue is a reference to his Ibirapuera Auditorium in São Paolo, details of which appear in the low top, slip-on, and Chukka Boot, which comes in natural suede, a nod to the Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again) monument in Rio de Janeiro. The Chukka is also lined in white leather printed with an illustration that makes reference to the Landless Workers’ Movement. It should come as no surprise  that Niemeyer is making a political statement. The 104-year-old architect and former president of the Brazilian Communist party has devoted his long career to workers’ rights as much as he has to architecture. Designing a shoe with a vague political message is all fine and well, but the Guardian‘s Oliver Wainwright is right to wonder what Niemeyer “would make of accusations that dozens of factory workers making Converse sneakers in Indonesia have been routinely abused on the job?”


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