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Thrillist New York
Emailed on: Thursday June 21, 2007

Otabo Custom Footwear

1 West St, Ste 100, at Battery Park Place; 646.274.1306;

While remorseless technology helped Robocop clean up Detroit, without his underlying humanity, he never would've outmaneuvered the even more remorseless Dick Jones. Introducing the Robocop of dress shoes: Otabo, just arrived in NYC.

Using only the finest materials (e.g., they share a leather supplier with Hermes), Otabo combines bespoke craftsmanship with production methods so advanced, they'll soon consign craftsmen to a life of flipping soylent greenburgers. The process:

1) Visit Otabo and have your feet digitally 3D modeled, then select from thirty base styles, plus leather type, detailing, toe shape, etc. Your appointment should last 45mins, though with 1,600,000 possible design combos, you could die there.

2) Your specs go to Otabo's ultramodern Florida manufacturing hub, where phrases are bandied about like "custom contoured fiberglass shanks, lightweight and stronger than steel", "vision-guided stitching based on Israeli military technology", and "we've got the most bitchin' technological phrases".

3) Lastly, actual humans lay into your pair to instill character -- so instead of your leather's antique finish being machine-crafted, it'll be little-old-man-crafted. That just screams quality.

Ultimately you'll end up spending hundreds-to-thousands less than you would on 100% bespoke, because despite being cold and humorless, machines do save money. You might worry you're not ready for this Super-Future, but your hammertoes are.

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