If you’ve ever wondered what Mario’s shoes would look like in real life, wonder no more. Nintendo partnered with footwear maker Red Wing Shoes to recreate Mario’s boots as shown in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
These boots were made for plumbing
These boots were made for plumbing
To my eyes, they seem like boots for, well, a fictional Italian plumber. But really nice boots, of course — I’d expect nothing less for the man known for traveling across literal galaxies to stomp on sentient mushroom-like beings and evil turtles. Gotta have good shoes for that!
If you want to see the boots for yourself, they’re actually on display at the Nintendo store in New York City right now:
But if you aren’t near the Nintendo store, I highly recommend exploring Red Wing Shoes’ full website about how the shoes were created. Apparently, part of the shoe was made with mushrooms?
It’s here, the official boot of Super Mario Bros. Plumbing. Using legacy methods and innovative materials, Red Wing’s skilled craftspeople have brought some of the magic of the Mushroom Kingdom to real life. Mario’s boots are expertly crafted from Red Wing leather, with a reinforced toe box and rounded heel. Most importantly, the heel pad is made with state-of-the-art mushroom-infused materials celebrating Mario’s signature abilities.
Even better is the three-minute, 10-second video showing people actually putting together the shoes, titled “Pixel to Stitch.” The video is extremely serious in an obviously tongue-in-cheek way, but I find it rather soothing. It has calming music, a lot of workshop sound effects, and it’s cool to watch the shoes get made.
I can’t find an easy way to embed the video here, so you should just visit the site yourself and settle in for some ASMRio.
Unfortunately, the boots are not for sale, according to Red Wing Shoes. But if you’re still looking to celebrate Mario Day (that’s today, March 10th!) with some retail therapy, there are a bunch of deals on Switch games and accessories happening right now.