MSCHF is a name that everyone has likely become familiar with by now. The Big Red Boots took over our timeline earlier this year and are one of the most hyped items of 2023. But even though MSCHF has gotten a lot of eyes for its Astro Boy-esque boots, the Brooklyn-based art collective has been breaking the internet for a hot minute.
Originally founded in 2016 by Gabriel Whaley, a former BuzzFeed employee, MSCHF has always been known for its sense of humor and ability to create viral moments out of thin air. The company’s earliest drops included selling a computer loaded with six pieces of malware that have created a total of $95 billion in financial damages worldwide and “Puff the Squeaky Chicken,” which was a rubber chicken that doubled as a bong. Since then, MSCHF has been well-known for releasing a wide range of cheeky commercial products. Some include parodies of popular sneakers like Nike Air Max 97s, which have gotten the Brooklyn-based creative studio sued. Other projects, like “Medical Bill Art,” have led MSCHF to create satirical art that doubles as social commentary.
Since MSCHF and Crocs are set to release a Big Yellow Boots collaboration on Aug. 9, we decided to look back at some of the brand’s most viral creations.
MSCHF Goes Viral With Unofficial Air Max 97 “Jesus Shoes”
When: Oct. 8, 2019
MSCHF first caught everyone’s attention with the release of a custom pair of Air Max 97s inspired by the biblical story of Jesus walking on water. Only 24 pairs were made and each one included a steel crucifix as a lace lock and holy water that was allegedly sourced from the River Jordan placed inside the insoles. The sneakers also included red insoles that were scented with frankincense to channel the traditional red shoes worn by Vatican priests. Matthew 14:25 was also inscribed on the sneaker’s toe box, to call out the section of the bible where Jesus walked on water. The shoe boxes even featured a parody of the official papal sale and an angel pulled off Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving “Melencolia I.” These sneakers originally retailed for $1,425 and now resell for as much as $2,500 today. The hype was so real that even Drake got himself a pair.
MSCHF Sells the Spots From a Damien Hirst Spot Painting
When: April 27, 2020
Why spend $30,000 on one of Damien Hirst’s iconic spot paintings when you could have a piece of it for less than $500? That’s what MSCHF did with Severed Spots, a project that led MSCHF’s team to cut up a $30,000 signed Damien Hirst spots print. The original print, titled L-Isoleucine T-Butyl Ester, was originally released in 2018 in an edition of 55. It featured 88 spots and MSCHF cut out all of them to sell back to the public for $480 each. The original print with cutout holes was auctioned off with a starting price of $126,500. “The key to runaway art world success is: merchandising!” MSCHF wrote in the manifesto for the project. “Who wants to make one-offs when the market has so much appetite? But let’s take it a step further—maybe we don’t need more zombie wallworks, we just need to distribute the ones we’ve got!” According to Artnet, all 88 holes sold in under a minute and the cut-out canvas remained drawn in under 20 bids, but still sold for $261,400. MSCHF’s gamble to cut up a popular artist’s work certainly paid off.
MSCHF Releases “Birkinstock” Sandals
When: Feb. 8, 2021
In the vein of cutting up a $30,000 work of art by Damien Hirst, MSCHF eventually set its eyes on the luxury handbag market by releasing “Birkinstock” sandals crafted out of real Hermès Birkin bags. Each Birkin MSCHF destroyed was worth between $19,500 and $48,000. The brand took the rare ostrich, crocodile, and taurillon leather these bags were made out of and turned them into a pattern that could be sewn onto the cork footbed of an actual Birkenstock sandal. Only four pairs were made and were sold for $34,000 to $76,000 each. All four pairs sold out and one $48,000 pair was worn by Future.
MSCHF Sued by Nike for Releasing “Satan Shoes” Modeled by Lil Nas X
When: March 29, 2021
Naturally, the perfect follow-up to a pair of Jesus-inspired Air Max 97s would be another pair inspired by the Devil. MSCHF’s “Satan Shoes” were priced at $1,018 and referenced the Bible verse Luke 10:18, which reads, “He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.’" The shoe took similar design cues to its predecessor. An all-black Air Max 97 was customized with red accents, included a pentagram lace lock, and actual human blood from MSCHF’s design team inside the air bubble. The shoes were also promoted by Lil Nas X in his music video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Only 666 pairs were released and sold out instantly. Unfortunately, many customers did not get them because Nike swiftly took action following widespread confusion about the footwear giant’s involvement. When the sneakers were released, politicians like Gov. Kristi Noem and athletes including Nick Young, falsely criticized Nike for releasing sneakers connected to Satan. Less than six hours after the drop, Nike filed “a trademark infringement and dilution complaint” against MSCHF. Nike argued that MSCHF was “deceiving consumers into believing that Nike manufactures or approves of the Satan shoes” and was thus harming Nike’s image. They then attempted to stop MSCHF from shipping orders.
A week later, on April 6, Nike and MSCHF reached a settlement agreement. The terms of the settlement required MSCHF to send an email to buyers asking them to voluntarily return either their Satan or Jesus shoes for a full refund at retail price. Obviously, one could imagine how many people actually returned them. In an interview with Complex, MSCHF co-founder Daniel Greenberg said he was anticipating a negative reaction to the shoes. “We’re prepared for people to be upset with it, but it’s also not something that we predominantly mind,” he said. “We say a lot internally, we’re OK being loved or hated, we just don’t want apathy.”
MSCHF Releases The Weeknd’s “Out of Time” Single on a Vinyl Saw Blade
When: April 7, 2022
The Weeknd collaborated with MSCHF to release a single off his album Dawn FM. “Out of Time'' received a very special vinyl pressing by MSCHF because it was placed on 25 actual saw blades that doubled as playable records. According to MSCHF, the record’s grooves were engraved into a copper band using direct metal mastering. Then, it was inset into the body of a real saw blade with a vibration-halting design. The special saw blade records were only available via auction for 24 hours. The vinyls have been re-sold on StockX for as much as $2,500.
MSCHF Releases "The Ultimate Participation Trophy" With Tiffany & Co.
When: May 2, 2022
One of MSCHF’s first major collaborations was with the heritage luxury jewelry label Tiffany & Co. last year. MSCHF collaboration with the brand was tied to Tiffany's 185th anniversary and it celebrated the jewelry company’s history of producing sports trophies. Instead of producing something like a Vince Lombardi Super Bowl trophy, MSCHF made luxurious pieces it dubbed “The Ultimate Participation Trophy.” Only 100 trophies were produced. Each featured a topper character performing various sports and crafted out of 900-grams of sterling silver. The first three customers to purchase the trophy got first, second, or third place trophies while everyone else received participation awards. The trophies sold for $1,000 each.
Vans Sues MSCHF for Its Wavy Baby Sneakers
When: April 14, 2022
The next major lawsuit MSCHF caught was in April 2022. Vans sued the collective days before it were set to drop a $220 pair of sneakers designed with Tyga dubbed the “Wavy Baby.” Vans argued that MSCHF’s Wavy Baby sneakers looked far too similar to the Vans Old Skool. The heritage skateboard shoe label said that MSCHF’s Wavy Baby sneakers was an ‘“effort to confuse consumers, unlawfully siphon sales from Vans, and intentionally damage Vans’ valuable intellectual property rights.” According to its lawsuit, Vans said they sent cease-and-desist letters to MSCHF after seeing a TikTok video of Tyga promoting the shoes, where he puts a pair of Vans Old Skools in a microwave and then pulls out a pair of the Wavy Babys out of the same microwave. In response to the lawsuit, MSCHF put out a spicy statement that criticized the footwear label’s actions. MSCHF said that Vans had allegedly reached out to MSCHF to settle with them ahead of the drop by asking for half the profits, four pairs of shoes for themselves, and potential meetings about future collaborations. “Turns out that they were shaking our hand at the same time they were stabbing us in the back,” MSCHF wrote in its statement.
Despite the lawsuit, MSCHF went through with the drop and released 4,306 pairs. That same month, Vans secured a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in its trademark infringement lawsuit against MSCHF, with a judge siding with Vans’ argument that MSCHF’s Wavy Babys confused consumers and could not be considered a parody. As of now, the legal battle between MSCHF and Vans has not been resolved. The most recent update on the case was another trademark infringement lawsuit filed in April 2023 by a brand named WaveyBaby, which claims the name of MSCHF’s sneaker infringed on its own trademark.
MSCHF Drops Super Normal 2 Sneakers
When: June 23, 2022
Surprisingly, even after dealing with Nike’s legal team, MSCHF hopped on the trend of riffing on Nike Air Force 1s by releasing its Super Normal 2 sneakers. MSCHF’s re-interpretation of the classic white-on-white staples employed squiggly-shaped overlays across the sneaker’s lateral sides and toe boxes. The brand has continued to release Super Normals 2 in new colorways, despite the fact that designers like John Geiger and even brands like BAPE have recently dealt with Nike’s legal team over such parodies. Most recently, Kid Cudi previewed a Super Normal 2 collaboration of his own.
MSCHF Sells “Eat The Rich” Popsicles
When: July 11, 2022
One of the funniest ideas MSCHF put together was a novel concept for ice pops. In the summer of 2022, MSCHF drove around ice cream trucks in Los Angeles and New York that sold “Eat The Rich” popsicles. MSCHF riffed off classic cartoon ice popsicles with gumball eyes by making them into the heads of billionaires. Popsicles featuring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Ma were made and sold for $10 each. It wasn’t the first time MSCHF delved into food. Previously, the brand sold actual Chick-Fil-A sandwiches on Sunday for $$6.66 to criticize the conservative Christian values of the fast food chain. MSCHF also previously collaborated with the grocery delivery service Wee! to sell “illegal” potato chips that tasted like food banned in the United States—such as horse meat, poison blowfish, and maggot cheese.
MSCHF Unveils Its Gobstomper Sneaker With Jimmy Fallon on 'The Tonight Show'
When: July 28, 2022
A month after MSCHF released its first Super Normal sneakers, it introduced another new shoe design dubbed as the “Gobstomper.” Inspired by Willy Wonka’s Gobstoppers, the classic color-changing hard candy, MSCHF’s Gobstompers were a skate shoe that would reveal four other layers of color after some wear and tear. MSCHF originally released the shoes as a collaboration with Jimmy Fallon, who unveiled the shoes on a live episode of The Tonight Show. “Look, if I’m going to make a shoe, it’s got to be different; it’s got to change the game,” Fallon said, before unboxing the shoes on television. While these shoes certainly didn’t do anything like that, MSCHF has continued to produce new colorways of Gobstompers. So one can only assume there’s some sort of audience for it.
AC1 Cast Sneaker
When: Oct. 19, 2022
MSCHF was certainly on a run in 2022 when it came to releasing bizarre pieces of footwear. In the fall of last year, it produced a pair of boots that was inspired by medical aircast boots. While we’re certainly curious about how many units the brand sold, we have to give MSCHF some credit for doing this first. Less than a year after these boots were released, Rick Owens presented his own pair of aircast-inspired footwear at his Spring 2024 menswear presentation at Paris Fashion Week.
MSCHF Builds an ATM That Shows and Ranks the Cash Balance of Art Basel Attendees
When: December 2022
One of the most notable and viral art projects released by MSCHF was a peculiar ATM machine that was set up at Miami Art Basel 2022. It wasn’t a real ATM that could dispense money. Instead, it was an ATM that would share anyone’s current bank account balance and then put it on a ranked leaderboard screen directly above the machine. "ATM Leaderboard is an extremely literal distillation of wealth-flaunting impulses," Greenberg told NPR in an interview. "From its conception, we had mentally earmarked this work for a location like Miami Basel, a place where there is a dense concentration of people renting Lamborghinis and wearing Rolexes." So who came out on top of the leaderboard? It was none other than the DJ and music producer Diplo, who cheekily shared he “won art basel” after putting his debit card in and coming out on top with a bank account balance of over $3 million.
MSCHF Drops The Big Red Boots
When: Feb. 16, 2023
What has arguably been MSCHF’s most popular release yet is a piece of cartoonishly large footwear it dubbed “The Big Red Boots.” Originally modeled in a campaign featuring Sarah Snyder, The Big Red Boots were constructed entirely out of a TPU shell and boasted an EVA foam ribbed outsole. The boots quickly went viral and became a must-have for Instagram fashion influencers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wore a pair in the Tunnel. Fivio Foreign and Lil Wayne put them on. Wisdom Kaye styled them with Louis Vuitton and Lavin pieces. Even WWE superstar Seth Rollins wore them in the ring on an episode of Raw. When these dropped for $350, they sold out instantly. So yes, a lot of people want to dress like Astro Boy or that monkey from Dora the Explorer. Whatever your thoughts on these were, MSCHF’s Big Red Boots created a spectacle that will be well-remembered as a highlight of style this year.
MSCHF Releases BWD Sneakers
When: April 11, 2023
One of the most original footwear releases to come from MSCHF arrived this year in April—a pair of shoes dubbed the “BWD” that could either be worn both front and backward. The original silhouette boasted a white-based leather upper with holes at the forefoot and by the ankle collar. The shoes featured MSCHF branding throughout and directional arrows on the gumsole. Donald Glover even wore a pair courtside at the Barclays Center to catch a Nets game.
MSCHF Releases “Big Yellow Boots” Collaboration With Crocs
When: Aug. 9, 2023
Just when you thought the hype for MSCHF’s Big Red Boots died, artist Tommy Cash came to Paris Fashion Week’s Spring/Summer 2024 shows in a pair of Big Yellow Boots that resembled a pair of Crocs Classic Clogs. MSCHF x Crocs’ Big Yellow Boots are essentially the same as its predecessor except that it has Crocs’ iconic ventilation holes and its trademark strap on the back. The collaboration was modeled by Paris Hilton in a lookbook and is highly anticipated to sell out again.