‘When I design a shoe I think about it as a sculpture to wear, an art piece you live with. You and your body affect its look and it affects yours. Footwear should have its life with and without being on the feet, on the contrary to cloths that exist only when being worn’.

Designer Kobi Levi specializes in designing unusual footwer that crosses the line between fashion and art.

Kobi Levi is Israeli designer graduated from Bezalel academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem, in the jewelry and accessories design department. He now specializes in footwear design and development/making. He works as a freelance designer. In the past 5 years he collaborated with Skinsfootwear company and is currently working on his own men shoe line in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Developed industrial footwear in both Italy, China and Brazil. His work is presented in various exhibitions in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Verona, St. Etienne and Berlin.

” In my artistic footwear design the shoe is my canvas. The trigger to create a new piece comes when an idea, a concept and/or an image comes to mind. The combination of the image and footwear creates a new hybrid and the design/concept comes to life. The piece is a wearable sculpture. It is “alive” with/out the foot/body. Most of the inspirations are out of the “shoe-world”, and give the footwear an extreme transformation. The result is usually humoristic with a unique point of view about footwear. Another aspect of the creation is the realization. All the pieces are hand-made in my studio. The challenging technical development is the key to bring the design to life in the best way,” says Kobi about his work.

The most of the designs are one of a kind pairs hand made in his studio. Custom made pairs are made per order. All of his shoes are still made by hand—one by one—so it’s quite expensive. It can take 2 weeks at least to re-make a style. The original takes about a month.

Kobi Levi has created shoes that resemble cats, dog, sling shots, banana peels, chairs, and even those rolling shopping carts that little old ladies tend to favor. Like them or not, you can’t deny the creativity and clearly-executed vision that went into fashioning these shoes.

Levi’s amusing designs show that inspiration really can be found anywhere — in even the most mundane of objects.