Havaianas and Threadless Debut Six Designs on Flip-Flops, T's

by Lisa Palladino (RSS feed)
Jul 14th 2010 at 4:02PM

Havaianas, the amazingly popular and remarkably comfortable flip-flop line from Brazil, unveiled in NYC on July 8 the winning designs that came out of the first flip-flop design contest, held in partnership with Threadless.com, the online community-based T-shirt company. Six pairs of flip-flops and six matching T's debuted on Havaianas's website and were launched nationwide on July 12.

Democratic design has been gaining force in the fashion world as companies are "crowd sourcing" and allowing the general public to be part of the artistic process. Havaianas wanted to involve its consumers and fans in this inventive development by hosting the contest in March. The "Threadless Loves Havaianas" design competition was Threadless's first foray into the accessories category and the site's first design challenge outside of T's.

The site received more than 600 design submissions from contestants around the world. Artists Farhan Hassan from Singapore and Alvaro Arteaga Sabaini from Chile drew the highest number of votes and were named the winners. They joined the existing designs by Josh Perkins from Arizona, Jess Fink from New York, Ross Zietz from Chicago, and Emmy Cicierega from Massachusetts to form the collection.

The flip-flops will be sold exclusively on the Havaianas website for $28 each. Threadless.com will produce and sell T's featuring the six winning designs for $18-$20.

Above is the " Royal Wave" design. Check out the gallery for the full collection!

Gallery: Havaianas and Threadless Design Contest Winners