No exaggeration, a good 18 different people have personally sent me this link since it went live (though I saw right after it dropped, via Mudd Up!). So I'm just gonna post it already. Pointy Boots. Extremely pointy pointy boots. Botas picudas.
I'm as much at a loss about this 'craze' as you must be.
The video, part of an art package by Vice, is an introduction to a fashion phenomenon that is directly tied to the tribal guarachero boom that has taken hold in the north of Mexico and in some parts of the U.S, particularly in Texas. Filmmaker Bernardo Loyola and crew visit a town in San Luis Potosí named Matehuala (near the border with Nuevo Leon state), where local vatos claim the pointy boots were invented.
3BALL MTY mix-master Erick Rincon ("un dios para hacer el tribal") makes an appearance. He makes the connection between SLP and its migrant diaspora in the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex. Watch and learn.
Let's just quickly hit the most obvious wonders. The pointy boots point to a fusion between a music movement and a regional tribalism in Mexico that appears to have nothing to do with any kind of illicit trade, neither as a belated reaction to a trend from north of the border. The boots, intervened, are the basis for a competitive dance-crew culture as well. Reminds me somewhat of the ass-bouncing cowboy crews in California.
For a window into the pointy boots' greater paisa-sphere, check in at Chuntaritos. And for pointy boots from Dallas that glow in the dark, see this video at mun2.
* Photo above via Vice. * Post edited. ** See Intersections category Tribes for more.