Just how do you stomp around the city? It stands to reason that in one of the most diverse cities on the planet, there should be various kinds of options in food, clothing and adornment to accommodate the mix of flavors in this New York City melting pot. Truth is that there really are diverse flavors since one can stroll around the neighborhoods of lower Manhattan and enjoy the tastes of Italy on one corner, China on the next and little worlds of commerce from worldwide labels raising their creative flags in the Big Apple. One such neighborhood to discover that the art of the boutique has not been lost to the monotony of chain stores is Soho. It's here that I had the pleasure of being in house for the stateside launch of the German import with definite cool points, Trippen.
Trippen is a footwear company based in Berlin that keeps an artfully-crafted ingenuity in their creations. Since the label's inception in the early 1990s, founders/designers Angela Spieth and Michael Oehler have kept uniqueness at the forefront with an award-winning trifecta of form, avant-gardism and ecological responsibility. So vegetable-tanned leather meets low-emission production meets platform production standards meets insightful design which give birth to uniquely inspired, design-driven and edgy footwear that walk the lines of clothing as art & architecture. 
For Fall 2017, Trippen took inspiration from the beautiful mystery of volcanoes. The organic beauty of what lies beneath meeting what lies above and the textures, colors and shapes created by the natural ecological marriages helped to create the free-form shapes that together within the framework of footwear created an intriguing collection. The natural inky, drab colors contrasting with the vibrant odd-earthy tones and the fluid movements together with the fixed solid shapes were reminiscent of the solidity of brutalism together with the free expression of abstract art. However, don't just take my word for it. Trippen is now open at 243 Mulberry Street between Prince and Spring Streets in Soho, NYC and awaiting more admirers and footwear aficionados seeking to add some avant-gard to their gaits.
www.En.Trippen.com
