How China’s Feiyue sneakers, shoes of Shaolin monks, are making a comeback
- Traditionally the go-to footwear of Shaolin monks, Chinese Feiyue sneakers are seeing a resurgence thanks to Gen Z’s love of retro heritage brands
- New stores have opened in Beijing as the Chinese brand looks to differentiate itself from separate Feiyue brands in France, the US and elsewhere
Chinese sneaker brand Feiyue started out providing the go-to footwear for Shaolin monks; the shoes were lightweight, supportive and cheap.
Fast forward nearly 70 years and the martial art accessory has become a fashionable must-have – and the cause of multiple copyright disagreements. For the past year and a half, Beijing resident AJ Donnelly and his business partner Nic Doering have been working with the Shanghai-based brand to bring it back to its humble roots.
Donnelly’s story starts like that of many who encounter Feiyue in Beijing: he stumbled upon the shoes when he started his martial arts training at the Shaolin Temple in Henan province in 2015.
The shoes, which were also a staple of the martial arts performers at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, are made using recycled rubber from the Shanghai Da Fu Rubber tire factory. Their Chinese name means “to leap” or “to fly over”, though its slogan “flying forward” will be more familiar to people in the West.
In 2016, Donnelly and Doering launched a company called Cultural Keys to help foreign students in China learn about traditional Chinese culture. It included martial arts programmes conducted in partnership with the Shaolin Temple and Feiyue shoes were part of the students’ training outfits. It soon became clear, however, that they would need a greater supply.
