February 2023

I am not sure about Liver King diets but I am pretty sure walking is good for you…

Our ongoing project to provide the perfect perambulator started with the beloved Mephisto Match. The Match is a fantastic shoe no doubt, but naturally we wanted more. It was sometime during our back and forths with the good people at Mephisto that they invited us to design our ideal walking shoe. What a privilege. #collab.  . 

Amongst a wash of rather ubiquitous walking shoe designs we bring to you the ‘Rally King’. A name that suggests tennis, and probably shouldn’t, but there is more than one way to have a rally. It is at once superbly comfortable, durable and elegant.

Inspired by the already very good Match, we ratcheted up the leather to thinner, softer and stronger goat leather in off-white, which also achieved a lighter weighted shoe. To the grippy Caoutchouc rubber sole we added a Mephisto proprietary ‘Airbag’ - not entirely sure what that is but it feels great and looks even better. Metal eyelets mean that tightening is even, smooth and strangely pleasurable, sensual even. Is this the perfect walking shoe? We think so. 

Available only through P.Johnson. AU$695.

The Mephisto Story:

Established in Sarrebourg NE France in 1965, Mephisto has forged an unmatched reputation for quality in city shoes. Martin Michaeli chose the name Mephisto after being inspired by a little museum in a hotel restaurant dedicated to Goethe's Faust in Western Germany, of course. Mephistopheles is a demonic character featured in Faust and much other Teutonic literature, weird, but Michaeli thought the name was ideal since it is impervious to mispronunciation in all languages and it is steeped with subconscious meaning to many Europeans thus yielding it some marketing potential.

He has some unique patented processes (including an insole specifically designed to emulate the spongey sensation of walking on moss), extremely fastidious quality standards and something called the Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite for being a particularly good Frenchman, or at least a particularly rich one.