[spidermonkey09]

Nice. Least its a reassuringly massive foothold!

[SA Chris]

What were those red shoes again? I thought they were cutting edge at the time, but by modern standards they probably weren't the best for this type of climbing?

[spidermonkey09]

Testarossa?

[SamT]

sorry Will for nicking the image link

[Dac]

La Sportiva Mirage, probably the first ‘double cambered’ shoe, ( both downturned and curved in towards the big toe).

They never really caught on, maybe they were ahead of their time, maybe they were a bit shit; but I suspect Gresham didn’t wear them on the lead go!

[Fiend]

You'll always have the cover of OTE 120 JB!

And always worth a post of one of the most glamorous shots in climbing 

[Wil]

sorry Will for nicking the image link

No apology needed. They're Ray Wood's pics.

Neil is wearing La Sportive Mirages in the photos, as he was in quite a few others around the time. I remember seeing a pair at the wall when I was starting out and wondering how on earth you were supposed to contort your feet into them.

[i_a_coops]

Anyone got a copy of the greatest staged photo of all time? Ken Palmer pretending to do Tuppence without the drop knee to keep the sequence secret? 

Think its in the old South Devon + Dartmoor guide....

[remus]

[i_a_coops]

Waddage! And what an absolutely shameless sandbag (both the method and the grade  )

[SA Chris]

La Sportiva Mirage, probably the first ‘double cambered’ shoe, ( both downturned and curved in towards the big toe).

They never really caught on, maybe they were ahead of their time, maybe they were a bit shit; but I suspect Gresham didn’t wear them on the lead go!

That's the one, thanks. Curve and downturn, but also looked a bit baggy in the wrong places.

[Bonjoy]

I had a couple of pairs and thought they were absolutely amazing for standing on tiny footholds e.g.Malham Upper tier, NW slate. Deffo something I would have kept buying if they hadn't stopped making them. I think they were just a bit too radical for the market at the time, and possibly still are, but the design concept definitely worked in the intended way.

[danm]

I don't think they were unpopular, I heard that they couldn't keep up with demand as they were so hard to make. If you wear a softer, downturned shoe then you can probably trace their heritage back to these. I may remember incorrectly but I thought the designer was poached by Scarpa to make their first shoes of this type.

[Ru]

Pretty sure they were the first downturned shoe on the market. Designed by Marius Morstad (spelling?), the guy that was training Ben and Jerry in the 90s.

[duncan]

Looking back nearly 30 years, Mirages were definitely the shape of things to come. According to Mick Ryan, they were designed by Giuliano Jellici and Heinz Mariacher. Edit: the Marius Morsted story does sound familiar, I guess it is possible several people were involved.

Mariacher left La Sportiva in 2005 and joined Scarpa not long after. He gives his version of why here.

[kc]

I had a couple of pairs in about 1998. I thought they were really good on the steep and also match stick edges on slate. The reason I stopped buying them apart from getting free Red Chillies instead was the fact they didn't seem to last very long. So much force was concentrated into the point I'd only get a few months out of them before burning through the toe.

[Paul B]

I don't think they were unpopular, I heard that they couldn't keep up with demand as they were so hard to make. If you wear a softer, downturned shoe then you can probably trace their heritage back to these. I may remember incorrectly but I thought the designer was poached by Scarpa to make their first shoes of this type.

That's interesting (if it's true) as I can definitely remember a Scarpa shoe with that kind of characteristic but I'm struggling to put a name to the model; it'll have been discontinued in around 2012? Maybe Remus needs a list of shoe models by year as something else to keep him busy?

[nic mullin]

Scarpa paranoia I think, advertised on the back cover of the rockfax peak bouldering guide circa 2000 if I remember correctly.

[Paul B]

Scarpa paranoia I think, advertised on the back cover of the rockfax peak bouldering guide circa 2000 if I remember correctly.

It wasn't the Paranoia I was thinking of. Was there a classic poster of Paul Higginson wearing these around the Stick it! era?

[moose]

Paranoia's are advertised on the back of the ACD Yorkshire Gritstone Bouldering guide, "The next step in high performance climbing shoe design....A soft shoe with a lot of power...Built on a specially designed double camber last".

[Johnny Brown]

Was there a classic poster of Paul Higginson wearing these around the Stick it! era?

The inside cover of The Thing #9 is a Scarpa ad of Higg on Brad Pit, no name for the shoe given though.

[danm]

So far then we have Mirages in 1995 and Paranoias some time after that. This site says Five Ten were there first though: https://www.climbingshoereview.com/best-aggressive-climbing-shoes/

[Dac]

It looks like the five ten UFO is merely downturned, not downturned and cambered in towards the big toe like the Mirages and Paranoias were.

I’m not certain if UFO was the first downturned shoe or not, I thought it was the La Sportiva Kendo (but maybe that was just the first such shoe popular in Europe).

[SA Chris]

Don't remember Kendo having any downturn at all...

[Johnny Brown]

I had some UFOs, they were like a softer, less aggressive velcro. If they had a technically cambered construction it didn't result in a down-toe feel. Likewise the Kendos, they were a great boot but not down toed. I always thought the innovation there was the slingshot rand.