Hush Puppies trades designers with Cannondale Bicycles

Not content with just designing shoes for the high street, when Hush Puppies' design team were challenged by New Design Magazine to trade places with a designer from Cannondale Performance Bikes they tackled it with gusto!

Tanya from New Design Magazine comments "we love challenging creative people to put themselves in the shoes of a designer from a very different industry. The concept of trading place is simple: we ask the designers to give one another a design brief - something they would do in their jobs everyday – and then put the results in the magazine for designers everywhere to consider. We find that not only do the results make for an interesting article but the feedback from the participating designers is always that the challenge has refreshed their perspective and given them a new approach to their own job."

Cannondale briefed Hush Puppies designer Tim Richards to create a bike pedal that would specifically appeal to young women who are style conscious. Taking Agyness Deyn as his muse Tim went on to create a crazy PedalShoe – influenced by high fashion; Chanel’s clogs to be precise but with the practical in mind: Whilst cycling about town, the PedalShoe would protect footwear against the elements without appearing in opposition to her general look.

Erik Eagleman, Cannondale designer comments on the PedalShoe, ‘This is great! Very cool indeed. This address's a lot of issues that I saw problems with when approaching cycling accessories for the women’s market. You could sell it in three or four different sizes, S,M,L,XL. It keeps your dress shoes nice and clean, your foot doesn't move around on the pedal, you have the ability to pull as well as push. I really like this idea. Great work!”

In response to our brief to create a cycling-inspired tread design Erik designed a cool bike-chain inspired tread complete with men’s footwear silhouette. Tim comments on Erik’s design “Wow! I’m really impressed. Not only would this shoe design appeal to the cycling fraternity but also our current Hush puppies customer who buys casual fashion product form us. It’s really very commercial and the chain-link tread design just adds a neat twist. I also love the idea of creating a shoe inspired by retro bike shoes”.

So watch this space, and who knows we could be seeing Hush Puppies bikes and Cannondale shoes in the shops sooner than you think!