High-end designer John Fluevog sought a partner for a new design after receiving a new kidney.

A medical association has found itself in the shoe business thanks to a partnership with a leading designer.

Last month the American Society for Transplantation announced that it has partnered with shoe designer John Fluevog for the release of two limited-edition shoe releases. The shoes were designed by Fluevog himself after a successful kidney transplant last year, and were intended to draw awareness to kidney donation. (March is National Kidney Month.) AST receives a portion of the proceeds from sales of the shoes.

“We’re open to doing things outside the box, but nothing like this has ever come up before, so we were really excited when we were approached with the idea,” said AST Director of Communications and Marketing Shauna O’Brien.

Fluevog received a kidney transplant last April after a diagnosis with polycystic kidney disease. Days after the surgery, a doctor suggested he design a shoe with a kidney theme. ““I was inspired to make the shoes two days after my operation when a doctor came to my hospital bed and gave me a ‘doctor bad’ shoe drawing and said they thought I should make them,” Fluevog said in a release. The rough design featured the kidney’s three veins, which he integrated in men’s and women’s designs. The blood-red shoes are named the Patty and the Alan in honor of the donor and her husband.

A connection with AST came through a past president of the association, who soon looped in AST’s CEO and chief development officer. They traveled to Vancouver, where Fluevog is based, that fall, and the design was finalized by December. Fluevog specializes in high-end, colorful, and often offbeat designs, and AST staff had to wait months before seeing it, when Transplant Community Program Manager Brooke Iarkowski interviewed Fluevog.

“We hadn’t even seen the shoe until that interview, which we did the week of Christmas,” Iarkowski said. “And even then it was very hush-hush. John showed it to us there, and we got to see it in person, but it was very much, ‘Please do not share this publicly. Please do not send this image to anyone. And we didn’t start seeing photos of it, really, until just this past February.’

Fifteen percent of American sales of the shoes, which retail for $449, will go to AST; in Canada, proceeds go to the Kidney Foundation of Canada. (Fluevog also designed a more affordable kidney-themed pin, retailing for $20, with all proceeds going to AST’s Living Donor Circle of Excellence, which helps defray donors’ personal expenses. 

“These kidney shoes are my response to my thankfulness and my way of giving back,” said Fluevog in the statement. “It’s about bringing awareness to the shortage of and need for kidney donors.”

O’Brien said Fluevog will attend AST events and help promote the Circle of Excellence, but it doesn’t plan on further shoe-related initiatives. Still, the experience has taught the association the importance of being flexible around partnerships.

“Not everything has to be an obvious kind of partnership,” she said. “What’s important is that it’s authentic and not forced. I think that’s what’s so special about this.”

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