Meet the Designer Behind Katseye's Custom Adidas Tour Footwear
Katie Qian brought the group’s unique style to life for their debut tour.
Katseye’s Beautiful Chaos tour was one of the last big fashion moments of the year. The girls’ perfectly coordinated outfits always bring their personalities to life, but the footwear caught the eye on this tour. Night after night, the girl group wore bespoke adidas boots on stage, inspired by vintage boxing silhouettes and retro styles.
Designed by stylist Katie Qian, two styles of knee-high boots were on heavy rotation for all 16 tour dates. Grungy, fur-detailed pairs were offset by multi-colored, metallic versions in shades of blue, green and pink. Working closely with adidas, Qian’s designs embody the style of all six Katseye members perfectly, helping to solidify the group’s place as some of this generation’s biggest fashion icons.
We caught up with Qian to talk all things Katseye, vintage footwear and her biggest design inspirations. Keep scrolling to learn more about the mastermind behind the Beautiful Chaos Tour’s custom looks.
What were your main design influences for the boots?
The Katseye girls themselves really inspired the look for these boots. They’ve been loving edgy looks that incorporate leather and fur in the “Gnarly” era, so I wanted to bring that into the footwear for the tour. After confirming the designs for the tour looks, we wanted to create shoes that complemented that direction and felt cohesive.
Additionally, the girls have always felt so comfortable dancing in the adidas “Japan” sneakers, so we wanted to incorporate that base silhouette and create a taller boot with a lot of interesting texture. Practicality for the stage always informs a lot of the design process, because the girls do a lot of heavy dancing and stunts.
What was it like working with the Katseye girls?
It’s always really exciting for me to work with the girls! They’re incredible performers, and I’m such a fan of all that they’ve been doing this year, so it’s just a joy to get to contribute in any way. Personally, I feel like my aesthetic meshes with Katseye’s perfectly, so I’m really able to create looks that I love with them. It’s also a very unique experience working with a group, because it feels like a fun puzzle, piecing together each girl’s individual styles and preferences in a way that feels unified and part of one whole image in the end.
How did you approach incorporating each girl’s personal style into the boots?
Part of working with Katseye is really learning and incorporating each girl’s personality into what they wear. They all have great taste and have their own unique styles, so it’s a really fun process getting to know them. For these adidas boots, they have the same base silhouette that all the girls feel most comfortable dancing in, but the differences come with the different textiles, textures, and tones that we used.
It was a really collaborative process with the adidas team, who sourced a large variety of amazing materials based on my moodboard. We had a meeting where we went through all of the swatches and assigned materials to each portion of each boot for all six styles. At the end, we assigned the different styles to each girl based on what would go best with each tour look, as well as my knowledge of their preferences in terms of color and whether the boot was sleek or more maximalistic.
Did you use the adidas archive as a reference?
I was definitely inspired by vintage adidas boxing boots that I had seen everywhere, so I was really excited to create something reminiscent of that style and shape. I had also pulled a lot of other inspiration and visual references that included a mixture of vintage, DIY, and modern pieces. Most of the references were for interesting textures and mixed materials. I really wanted the boots to feel earthy, gritty, and organic. There was no exact reference yet of something that already existed, but there was a clear idea in my mind and I’m so grateful to the adidas team for bringing this unique ask to life.
They were a dream to work with. They understood my vision immediately and were able to really combine all of the inspiration into something really special for the tour.
Is design something you see yourself doing more of in the future, alongside styling?
I do think informing the design process and visually directing the looks is a big part of styling, especially when you work with a lot of musicians who require custom looks. I have a lot of fun doing that, so it will definitely continue to be part of my process. However, the real design work is done by designers and their teams who work tirelessly on the technical construction of all of the pieces. There is so much that goes into really creating the garments and pieces that we as stylists don’t do, and I have so much respect for it.
