THE EXARCHOPOULANTE HISTORY OF THE
PROVE THAT YOU EXIST
( And why you will tell it to your descendants )
Here is the story of Prouve que tu existes. A model designed between two bursts of laughter and a cushion stained with shakshuka, during an intense couch-swaying session, while listening transcendently to France Gall. It all started on a Sunday the 26th of I-don't-know-which-month, somewhere between aperitif and denial, as I was sharing a suspended moment with my sister, that poetic-biotic entity who talks to plants and dresses as if Saint-Germain-des-Prés had never accepted Sagan's death.
FRANCE GALL SPOKE TO ME
The music was playing. And suddenly, it happens. “Resist.” France’s voice, pure as additive-free fromage blanc, rises in the living room and pierces us like an arrow shot from a cloud of milk in our White Russian. Immediately, our bodies fall into resonance, like two Tibetan monks who caught chickenpox in a nightclub. We sway. We sway so hard that the sofa groans with memories of past orgies. Our glasses wobble. The ficus turns toward us on its own, visibly moved.
And in this moment of domestic grace; as my sister begins a choreography made solely of eyebrows and blurred gestures; I have a vision. An epiphany. A slap signed (Michel) Berger in the prefrontal cortex. The shoe. THE shoe, DAMN IT!
A golden, or green, soft and luminous shape, which would appear to women at the very moment they are about to say “I deserve better.” A pump like a declaration of independence, a revolt against sad loafers and depression ballet flats. I grab an old TV magazine (probably Téléstar) and scribble. It will be a 7 cm heel: neither too much nor too little, just enough to feel above the assholes without getting dizzy. A champagne color, to remind us that you don’t drink your life, you sabre it. And a cut so precise you’d think it was designed by a robot in love.
« A pump as a declaration of independence, a rebellion against sad loafers and depressing ballet flats. »
Why “Prove You Exist”? Because that’s what we all do, isn’t it? Every morning, between two passive-aggressive texts and a cup of instant coffee, we desperately try to show that we’re not just a shadow with an Apple ID. This shoe is for women who prefer flamboyant mistakes to lukewarm lives. For those who know that proving you exist sometimes just means wearing a shoe too beautiful for reality and stepping out anyway. It’s a glittery prayer for the angry-sensitive, the weary-elegant, the lace-clad badasses. It’s a shoe that whispers: you don’t need your parents’ approval to be exceptional. And that’s something France Gall would have endorsed. Or at least danced to.
This is how, in a moment of profound romantic confusion and hip-swaying synchronicity, “Prove You Exist” was born. A shoe designed with the insolence of those who refuse to go unnoticed. A weapon of mass persuasion. A permanent invitation to set this world on fire—a world that knows how to annoy us like no other. I invite you to take it off gently, with panache, and a cushion under your elbow. Ciao.
« A shoe designed with the boldness of those who refuse to go unnoticed. »
