Accessory, Necessity, Comfort or Couture?

Shoes say so very many things. They can acquaint us with someone’s personality, mood, style, status & profession. They can inform us where someone is going or where they have been. Our choice of footwear can address fashion, comfort, durability & self-image, sometimes all at once.

The earliest shoe designs were simplistic & practical, often just a bag of leather around the foot, protecting from rocks & cold. Sandals date back to around 8000BC & one anthropologist, Erik Trinkaus, has suggested evidence that shoes were being worn from around 40,000 years ago.

The average woman in the 1940s owned 5 pairs of shoes. In the 2000s, the average was more like 30 pairs. At a wedding in December 2010, I asked a guest seated across the table from me how many pairs of shoes she owned. Her first response was, “Including thongs?” Grinning broadly, I told her yes – after all, what Australian can honestly deny them as footwear? – and her answer to me was, “Not that many, about 60.”

My book is about the why. Why we buy them. Why we wear the ones we wear. Why we love them. Why we refuse to admit they are dead, or part with them. Why we suffer them.
It is about our best & worst memories & experiences.
But mostly, it’s about what drives our desire for that pair.

What do your shoes say about you?

 

Care to share one (or more) anecdotes about your shoes?

Perhaps you’re willing to take part in a questionnaire – there’s one on shoes in general, or there are more targeted ones for Thongs (the Australian type) & Converse “Chucks.”
There are no wrong answers.  Just like there are no wrong shoes… though there might be too many left(s)…

You’re welcome to browse through the blog posts that reference this project as well.

& if you’d like to model for, or have your shoes featured in, the book – email me & we’ll set up a time… or many times, depending on your collection!

 

A quick note:

This project is my passion, & sadly passion doesn’t pay bills.

The more time I spend working on my projects, regardless of their importance to me, the less time I have for shoots that generate income & put food on the table.  If you are taking part in this project – be it modelling, supplying stories or being interviewed – you need to be willing to donate your time & services (as I am) for the cause.   This means I cannot pay you.

Makeup & styling is provided, as is art direction &, in some cases, props & location permits – which means I’m almost always out of pocket on these shoots (sometimes by quite a lot), using the end goal as justification!

If this still sounds like something you’d be happy to do, please contact me & become a part of it!