admin Finally, there’s a shoe that fits anyone—but only because they’re not actually worn on the feet. Syro, the Brooklyn-based footwear brand that offers heels in large sizes (from men’s size 8 to 14), released a shoulder bag that looks like a stiletto ankle boot.
Syro’s modus operandi has been to inspire queer people to celebrate their femininity one heel at a time, or as cofounders Henry Bae and Shaobo Han cheekily put it, “deploying weapons of mass feminization.” Since its inception in 2016, celebrities like Lil Nas X, Sam Smith, RuPaul, and Bowen Yang have joined the brand’s cult following.
Until now, Syro has been committed to making shoes, but the idea to expand into accessories struck Bae in 2017 when he was walking along 23rd Street. “This lady waiting to cross the street in front of me had a knee high stiletto boot that she had fastened into a backpack,” he recalls to me on the phone. “It was completely DIY, and that’s when I knew that when we were finally ready to make a bag one day, it would certainly be a dramatic stiletto.”
Their designs are often inspired by the real experiences of queer people, and the Stiletto bag is no different. The co-founders wanted to make the accessory a statement about resistance and empowerment. Bae decided to make the bag a love letter to the trans community after learning about a Colorado performer who used her stiletto to stop the attacker in the 2022 Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs. “That’s when I was re-energized to express the unapologetic femininity and queerness that Syro has stood for since the beginning,” he says.
Along with a powerful message, Bae wanted to actually make a well-constructed bag, which took some trial and error. What he didn’t want was to just put handles on a shoe and call it a day. The first prototype replicated the shape of a shoe with the machinery that traditionally makes bags. The result was bulbous, soft, and lacked the sharp silhouette. When it clicked in Bae’s brain to create a strap that goes across the opening of the bootie and meets at the toe, with a parallel zipper on the shoe itself, he decided to collaborate with the brand’s existing technicians to utilize footwear technology.
