KOSAKU KANECHIKA in Tokyo has opened Heel-less Shoes, a solo exhibition by Noritaka Tatehana, at its Kyobashi gallery in the TODA BUILDING. The show runs from 30 October to 12 December 2026 and brings together more than 30 works, centred on 22 pairs of the artist's signature heel-less shoes together with his latest paintings.

The heel-less shoe takes its cue from the tall wooden clogs once worn by Japanese courtesans, reimagined by Tatehana as a sculptural object in dyed leather, suede, crystal and metal. Tatehana trained in textile arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, and he has described his research into Japanese culture as the starting point for the work, treating tradition not as a fixed inheritance but as something that only survives through innovation.

The design first drew worldwide attention when Lady Gaga wore a pair, and examples of the shoes have since entered the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. What began as a graduation project has become the defining motif of Tatehana's practice, revisited here at full scale.

This exhibition places that signature form at the centre of a larger presentation, pairing the shoes with new paintings that extend the artist's interest in surface, pattern and craft. Tatehana has shown with KOSAKU KANECHIKA since the gallery's opening in March 2017, when his work featured in its inaugural presentation. For a gallery that has shown him since its earliest years, the show is both a homecoming for a familiar object and a measure of how far it has travelled.