SWEAR London sneakers

shoes for starting a fight in

In 1996, a sheep was successfully cloned for the first time; Space Jam hit theaters; and in London, José Neves and Jorge Sampaio founded a shoe company that would become the foamsmith of the world’s chunkiest club shoes.

SWEAR is a great, forgotten sneaker producer of the 1990s. Their shoes are often compared to fellow platform footwear giant Buffalo, but SWEAR’s shoes have more of an abstract relationship with the human form: they’re heavy, roughly boulder-shaped, and they often include elements you can add or remove with Velcro, laces, or bungee cords, like a little 3-D puzzle you wear on your feet. For example, this pair of stompers has a neon green pouch you can Velcro over the laces, and this blue and yellow pair comes with with removable horns on the toe and heel. A listing for their Mad Planet sneakers at the Museum of Design in Plastics catalogues three (three!) different styles of interchangeable Velcro patches and bobbles.

SWEAR London relaunched as a customizable sneaker bran…