Bending the borders of footwear: Ten years of HAGEL

For ten years, HAGEL has been bending the borders of footwear. These aren’t shoes you wear to the gym (unless your gym is a Brutalist museum with one elliptical). Along the way, collaborations with Virgil Abloh, Takashi Murakami, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Asics and Puma have marked their vision on footwear.

Throughout these years, HAGEL has mutated the Puma Mostro into XXL spiked creatures, softened it with satin ribbons drawn from ballet, crafted hybrid Crocs, covered Nike’s in wrinkled latex, and reimagined Balenciaga’s Sock Sneaker in the fabric of an IKEA bag. Sneakers, flocked in velvet-like 3D textures, while architectural and cyber influences sculpted silhouettes that felt closer to artefacts than footwear.

Now, stepping into a new chapter, HAGEL opens its very first exhibition: a 1000m² retrospective tracing a decade of restless invention. For the first time, the archive is laid bare, revealing the studio’s enduring legacy in shaping what the future of footwear can be.

Scroll through our favourite HAGEL designs from the past decade. Happy birthday, HAGEL.