The original ugly sneaker is back

Velcro and a high heel — you either love or hate designer Isabel Marant’s unusual footwear

One day, roughly 10 years ago, French designer Isabel Marant found herself roadside, arguing her way out of a citation for blowing a red light.

“I was quite upset because it was really hidden by a big truck,” Marant said.

She had been pulled over by a pair of officers, one male, one female. He got back in the squad car; she started taking Marant’s information.

“Then she looked at me and said, ‘Are you Isabel Marant, the woman from the sneakers?’ ” Marant recalled, amused at the time that a pair of $600 (U.S.) shoes held sway with a traffic cop.

In the end, no ticket was issued: Marant drove away scotfree. Indeed, the sneakers in question had proved trafficstopping on several levels. Named the Bekett, the style is a high-top with an exaggerated, puffy tongue. Velcro straps, its definitive — and ultimately divisive — design detail, concealed a three-inch wedge heel.

Yes, a high-heeled sneaker — a concept deemed genius, heinous, anathema, so-wrong-it’sright and oh so very, very wrong all at once.

“It was like lightning had hit my head,” said Sasha Charnin Morrison, the style director at CBS Watch. “I was so enamoured by this ugliness.”

She wasn’t alone. The Bekett was everywhere. Beyoncé wore a black suede pair in her 2011 “Love on Top” video. The sneakers sold out everywhere and spawned six-month wait lists.

Like the Juicy Couture tracksuit, lowrise jeans and Uggs, the orthopedic-looking wedge sneaker was the kind of design you either professed your undying love for or wouldn’t be caught dead in. It transcended fashion and became culture.

The Bekett begat a million cheap knockoffs so unsightly that Marant denounced her own design even as it continued to pad her bottom line.

But Marant’s distaste for her famous sneaker has mellowed, it seems. A new, mightier version of her original wedge sneaker was introduced Tuesday.

The Balksee, a sort of soupedup Bekett with a robust sole that adds roughly two inches to the height of the original wedge, comes in what Marant describes as Lego colours: red, yellow, green, black and white.

Like the heel, the price, too, is more vertiginous. The Balksee sells for $770.

With the Balksee, Marant is reclaiming her stake in the chunky, ugly sneaker culture that has swept the likes of Gucci, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Stella McCartney, Yeezy and others — not to mention the many designer collaborations with athletic shoe brands.

“I was always thinking, ‘It’s so stupid that I was never able to rework the Bekett,’” Marant said. “Last year, suddenly it popped to me that just changing the sole will bring it into another world.”