ARTICLES / 001
A history of
United Nude
collaborations.
From Iris van Herpen’s Fang boots to threeASFOUR’s ring sandals and Karim Rashid’s VOID Bootie, a look at the designers, the shoes and the work behind United Nude’s collaborations.
2003 / How it started
Architect Rem D. Koolhaas and seventh-generation shoemaker Galahad Clark established United Nude in 2003. The Möbius was the starting point. Over the years, the brand’s collaborators have included Zaha Hadid, ISSEY MIYAKE, Ross Lovegrove and Ben van Berkel, alongside the three designers featured here.
United Nude’s role often extends into development and production: working out how a designer’s drawing can become a shoe, whether it is a runway sample or a release people can buy.
2010–2012 / The early Iris van Herpen shoes
The archive is worth going back to. For Synesthesia in 2010, the shoes combined laced leather with gold foil detailing. United Nude announced a run of 240 handmade pairs in black or ivory with gold.
Then came Fang for Spring/Summer 2012, with haircalf uppers and ten fang-shaped heels. Philippe Holthuizen, a designer involved in the project, describes an outsole machined in ABS, fitted to the bootie and cast using a silicone vacuum mould. These were complicated shoes to develop, and the finished pair still looks unusual more than a decade later.
For Autumn/Winter 2012’s Hybrid Holism collection, Thorn followed with a 19cm heel and a hidden platform. Hand-cut stones, including labradorite, tiger’s eye, leopard jasper and moss agate, formed the spikes around the opening beneath the foot.
2013 / Wilderness Embodied
By 2013, the partnership was working with Stratasys on the footwear for Wilderness Embodied. Twelve pairs appeared in the couture show. The branching, root-like designs were printed in rigid black and white materials using Stratasys PolyJet technology.
2014 / Biopiracy
For Autumn/Winter 2014, the collaboration continued with Biopiracy. The collection included a boot and a peep-toe ankle bootie, both built around a seven-inch platform and cantilevered heel. Their curved soles gave the shoes a different profile from the earlier Fang and Thorn designs.
2026 / Sonic Starquakes
For Iris van Herpen’s Autumn/Winter 2026 couture show in Paris on July 6, United Nude returned to its Edge silhouette. The runway versions included laser-cut uppers, hand-woven metallic chains and mesh boots with hand-applied glass bubbles.
The chain shoes were made using a double-lasted construction and a thin midsole, with chains threaded through closely spaced eyelets. The photographs show the detail better than a broad description can: the cut leather, the hardware and the chains hanging from the heel.
SS27 / threeASFOUR
United Nude reunited with threeASFOUR for SAMSĀRA, the collective’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection shown at New York Fashion Week. Four footwear concepts were developed for the runway.
The ring sandal was an original threeASFOUR design, engineered and prototyped by United Nude. Its circular heel and arched platform brought a design from threeASFOUR’s digital work onto the physical runway. Alongside it were versions of the Edge Boot, Stage Boot and Loop Toe Block Hi. Metallic silver finishes and reconstructed denim connected the shoes to the collection.
The backstage images are especially good here. You can see the ring sandal held in someone’s hand, then compare it with the same construction being worn in the show.
AW26 / Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid and Koolhaas had discussed making shoes together for more than a decade. Rashid kept sending sketches; eventually, one became the VOID Bootie.
The boot pairs a nappa leather upper and pointed toe with a custom, lightweight 3D-printed hollow wedge. The AW26 capsule was presented in Black, Black + White and Neon + White. In the campaign photographs, the coloured wedge makes the construction easy to read without needing a diagram.
Runway pieces and releases
Some of these shoes were made for a single runway show, while others became limited releases or found their way into editorials, exhibitions and private collections. The latest work with Iris van Herpen, threeASFOUR and Karim Rashid joins an archive that also includes collaborations with Zaha Hadid, ISSEY MIYAKE and Ross Lovegrove.