Giddy Up, a new Japanese 3-D Print label, takes the sneaker into the future

“Giddy Up!”, a phrase used in the olden days by cowboys of the West ​ spurring their horse in order to go faster, is the name of the new brand and the motto of designers Mikio Sakabe and Yusuke Hotchi. With Giddy Up! , they aim to accelerate the creative collision between fashion and technology. In order to position themselves in the first track, they have partnered with DMM, a Japanese e-commerce company with a high-tech profile which branches out into virtual reality and 3D printing. 

Nowadays, fashion and technology are no strangers to each other but it takes true creative visionaries to push the synergies to the next level. Sakabe and Hotchi both graduated, in 2006 and 2011 respectively, from the Antwerp Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where they blended their roots in Japanese avant-garde creativity with the cutting-edge design perspective of the Belgian school. This doubles their forward-looking advantage, since Tokyo is also the place where technology is most seamlessly integrated into daily life. Sakabe, thus far mostly known for his playful and nostalgic designs, wants to innovate on different levels: “To create something entirely new, fashion really needs to think not only of design but also fresh materials.” The challenge is to pair the use of new fabrics with a grounding in reality and wearability. ​ Giddy Up wants to foster a new connection with our garments both through technology as well as retaining a human touch and feel: the only way forward for the humans of the future.

Giddy Up’s future-oriented perspective also translates into their design-sharing philosophy: Sakabe and Hotchi share designs in the cloud with a larger group of creatives in order to push this type of aesthetic and hi-tech development forward, calling themselves “the Cloud Brand”. 

Giddy Up focuses firstly on shoes, and mixes the sophisticated look of knit logo socks (reminiscent of the Japanese tabi socks) with a playful pasticcio of sneaker elements, heels, soles and coils made from PA 12, a polyamide resin 3D-printed by DMM. ​ These “dad sneakers” have a charming retrofuturistic element: with tangerine and violet nods towards childhood as well as old age, the brand’s signature speaks to all of our humanity. One –off garments accompany and expand the shoes’ universe, a childlike iridescent wrap dress is emblazoned with a parody of the Chupa Chups logo, an embroidered sack dress holds a floral bouquet. ​ Though playful and whimsical in the design, Giddy Up! is not for the faint-hearted (or giddy) fashion lovers, the end goal being nothing short of establishing an Asian maison advancing the human experience through fashion and technology.