Firas Durri: Enthusiast

Interviewed by CBC’s Sook-Yin Lee, January 2008.

Ugg Boots?
I don’t quite understand the appeal to them. If you ask an Australian about them as a fashion statement they’d laugh at you, because they’re for housewives in the outback.

Going back in the time machine, to the 1970s I think. Candies, plastic stilettos from the 1970s. What do you think?
I thought they’re pretty hot actually. Things can look good when they’re unusual and not seen very often and suddenly when they get all over the place they just don’t look very good. But that particular shoe on its own, if it didn’t go mainstream and so huge—they were a cute pair of shoes. They looked good on your feet, they were sexy, they fit well, they were easy to wear—easy enough for a high-heeled shoe for a girl—and I thought they looked great. But then they get really mainstream and they don’t look so great anymore.

What about that uber-chic Sex in the City shoe that’s very de rigeur these days for a certain type of lady. Manolo Blahnik shoes.
I think—well, I have to be honest, don’t I?—it’s not that I don’t like Manolo Blahnik or I don’t think he’s a good designer. From a design point of view, a bit of a rehash from what was going on in the end of the 70s and early 80s. I’ve been at this a long time now. So I’ve been obviously been through a lot of different eras of footwear and vibes and generations and I’ve been there and done that, put it that way.

But as far as—I mean, girls obviously still like wearing really high spiky shoes, they just like putting them on and it makes them feel great. I’ve tried very hard not to do that. In fact, when all that came out I brought out a really round-toed heavy-bottom shoe that was completely opposite to what everything else was going on. And I actually sold them.

Crocs?
I think they’re great for washing your car. I think they’re great for working the garden. But to wear them every day, all the time—I don’t think so. It’s a bad fashion statement of who you are as a person, I think.

What do you think’s gonna happen—what’s the next big shoe in the future?
There’s different feelings like I was saying, different emotions of fashion that we go through in different eras. And I’m sensing a return to the early 70s. During that time it was a Victorian era and there was a resurgence of old areas and cities, like in Gastown for instance where I just opened another new store. And I believe that it’s going to get more traditional. So quality and tradition like lace-up boots, maybe heavier shoes for girls. Shoes that are sensible but feminine at the same time. So I’m going Victorian.