Our friend H.I., who lives in Tokyo,  has “Imelda Marcos” syndrome when it comes to shoes. He owns more than 300 pairs and has even had custom footwear made for him. When a shoe-designer friend of his offered to make a pair of shoes for him and asked him what he liked, H.I. simply said “I like to wear boots.”  The results were these cool, flat “boots for summer,” which are basically an ankle boot with parts of the leather trimmed in such a way that part of the foot is exposed. As these were just a custom prototype, you won’t find these in stores anytime soon. H.I. told us that he had kept these shoes unworn in his collection for four years and only started started wearing them this summer. – MI

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