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Forging Shadows: The Footwear Language of Boris Bidjan Saberi

Boris Bidjan Saberi’s footwear doesn’t aim to blend into the mainstream. Built with heavy lines and complex structures, his shoes often seem better suited for those who navigate the edges of the urban landscape and have a deep attachment to functional design. It’s not about pleasing trends, but about exploring a different kind of stride.


The German-Iranian designer, now based in Barcelona, is known for his experimental materials, hand-dyeing techniques, and architectural forms. His footwear inherits this same language: high-top wrappings, exposed seams, asymmetrical constructions, and repeated collaborations with Salomon. All part of a larger question: can footwear express attitude, not just style?


A Background at the Borders

Born to a German mother and Iranian father, Saberi grew up immersed in two cultural systems. This sense of being in-between has shaped his design philosophy from the start. Not formally trained in fashion school, he entered the industry through self-taught practice and launched his namesake label in Barcelona in 2007. His approach favors handcraft, stripped-down forms, and anti-industrial aesthetics, all of which extend naturally into footwear.


Saberi once stated that designing footwear is like building a complete human equipment system. If clothing is armor, then shoes are the point of contact with the ground. They must serve functional needs while expressing the wearer’s stance. This idea is closely tied to his ongoing dialogue with his hybrid identity, unbound by singular culture, uninterested in fleeting trends, and focused instead on structure, materiality, the body, and endurance.



Materials That Speak, Structures That Shield

Saberi’s shoes do not chase cleanliness or elegance. He embraces hand-dyed leathers, matte rubber coatings, and deliberately raw edges with industrial stitching. These features are not for shock value but to evoke a sense of having endured time and wear.


Common forms include thick-soled combat boots, zippered high-tops, and ankle-wrapping constructions. These are visually reminiscent of armor, yet practical in wearability. His core philosophy remains consistent: footwear is an extension of the body, both tool and narrative.


The Salomon Collaboration: Translating Performance into Aesthetics

Starting in 2016, Saberi partnered with French performance footwear brand Salomon in a long-term collaboration, not a one-off commercial release, but a continuous dialogue between his sub-line "11 by Boris Bidjan Saberi" and Salomon’s experimental division. This series has since become a benchmark for the fusion of technical footwear and avant-garde design.


What makes this collaboration significant is not just the product outcome, but its role in forecasting the trend of “technical fashion footwear.” Long before Salomon entered the fashion mainstream, Saberi transformed its trail-running silhouettes into objects of urban and conceptual design. Models like the Bamba 2, Bamba 5, and mid-cut GORE-TEX shoes preserve Salomon’s core technologies: speed-lacing, waterproof membranes, rugged outsoles, while incorporating dipped rubber finishes, hand dyeing, and debranding techniques. The result is a survivalist aesthetic with futuristic overtones.




For Saberi, this was never about capitalizing on hype. It was about integrating footwear into his broader vision of outfitting the human body. Through these shoes, he challenged industrial uniformity, emphasizing individuality, function, and visual depth.


Footwear Within the Saberi Universe

Saberi’s creative world is steeped in post-apocalyptic metaphors, and footwear is a key structural element in that vision. Heavy, quiet, and durable, his shoes reflect a long-standing meditation on survival.


Whether through experimental materials, desaturated palettes, or sculptural structures, Saberi consistently treats shoes as part of a larger narrative. Branding is minimal, but the connection between foot and ground is maximized, emphasizing movement, resistance, and concealment.


Saberi’s footwear is not just product design, it is a visual language and personal posture. In a sneaker market ruled by speed and spectacle, his work stands apart: isolated, determined, and deliberate.


He doesn’t pander to markets or rebel for attention. Instead, he asks new questions with each pair about the limits of materials, the emotional voice of design, and the psychological portrait of the wearer. That is why his shoes remain on the margins of fashion, yet never out of its field of vision.


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