West’s strongest footwear relationship is obviously with his sneakers, but he actually has a long (and even tumultuous) history with slides. Remember back in August of 2018, when he wore those slightly undersized velcro slides with socks and a seafoam green suit to 2 Chainz’s wedding in Miami? (Frankly…this is worth recreating for your second cousin’s wedding this summer. It is an iconic look.) He was widely scrutinized for his too-small shoes—and even joked about it on Twitter, with a selfie in cartoonishly big slides—and now, it seems, after a year and a half, he has gone in the other direction. (He’s a guy who likes to tweak and tweak, whether it’s “fixing ‘Wolves’” or a footwear silhouette—though he bristled a bit at being compared to the Olsens in a press preview for the collection, he shares this in common with The Row designers, who refine and rework a set of ideas, or really a philosophy about clothes, rather than innovating seasonally.)

This newest slide is more elegant—basically refined!—than the previous iteration, and than previous non-sneaker Yeezys. (Like, says, the Foam Runner, which was compared to a pair of Crocs…as if West wouldn’t have known that himself.) He mentioned in the press preview that he’s been heavily influenced by Japanese principles of zen and wabi-sabi, moving towards a sense of the “essential” rather than “minimalist.” (When his tiny slides were mocked, he also referenced the country, saying in his defense that he was wearing them “the Japanese way”—a reference to the iki aesthetic that favors spontaneity, originality, and sophistication.) That seems evident in his footwear, and he told the handful of editors that he is betting this slide in particular will shape the next era in shoes. “We’ve presented so many things that have influenced color palettes and shapes of shoes, like the shape of the [Yeezy] 350s that have become the most iconic shoe of the past 15 years,” he said. “Now we have these new slides that we’re doing, and you’ll see that these shapes will start to affect other designers.”

Is the oversize revolution coming for feet? Will health footwear takeover the world? Is the post-sneaker world not a life in loafers, but in slide sandals? Are shoes just about to get super minimal? Perhaps the next several months will reveal an answer. Even when spectators mock or puzzle over West’s fashion output or personal style choices, his influence always shows up where you least expect it: Altuzarra, the unofficial uniform of the frosty Upper East Side woman, just showed a bunch of suits with slide sandals. In other words, when Kanye does something, it shows up basically everywhere.