Barcelona defender Jules Kounde is definitely among the most fashionable footballers in Europe’s major leagues. He is a proactive, sturdy defender on the pitch and clearly a fashion enthusiast outside of it.
As there is no dress code at Barcelona, players can literally wear whatever they like when arriving at stadium ahead of matches. Kounde has taken full advantage of this to show off his wide collection of clothes.
But the Frenchman decided to take a step further and basically break gender norms with a unique dress-up when arriving to join the France national team camp ahead of Euro 2024.
Kounde faces a tough fight to carve a place for himself in the starting XI, but looked super confident and relaxed heading into the camp.
He wore a white shirt with an orange tie, paired with a brilliant black jacket and a pair of light blue jeans.
But what really caught the photographer’s attention were the pair of shoes that he decided to wear for the occasion.
Instead of going with a pair of sneakers or something, Kounde opted for what seemed like formal shoes with a pair of heels instead.
Kounde managed to really stand out with his strange shoe choice. The shoes he’s wearing seems like a normal pair of black formals, but with the heel part extended to increase the height of the wearer by a few inches.
The Frenchman has managed to break gender norms by wearing heels. Because naturally, wearing high inch heels is something that has been normalized for women. Over the decades, renowned shoe manufacturers around the globe have always created high heel shoes to help the women stand out from the men.
This is normally done to increase a woman’s height to match up to her partner or with taller individuals. Wearing high heels is something that has been culturized as ‘feminine’. As a result, men stray away from it because wearing heels could have them mocked as being too ‘feminine’ and lower their ‘masculine’ levels.
The exact model and price of his black heels cannot be found on online retail stores and it might be one that he got custom-made for himself. With that being said, leather heel shoes for men are actually quite readily available all across the globe.
Indeed, this type of shoes can actually be found on Alibaba for a relatively reasonable price of £62. Of course, the variety that the Barcelona star is wearing must be way more expensive, knowing his love for pricey stuff.
But he seems to be insinuating that it’s only fine for men to cap off a semi-formal wear with similarly leather heel shoes. Kounde might be a style icon off the pitch, but he now needs to focus on glistening up his style on the ground.
The 25-year-old has to work his socks off to outperform his fellow French defenders and convince Didier Deschamps to make him a regular in the France team as they aspire to win their first European Championship in over two decades.
