[Tanya Melendez Escalante] Welcome to The Museum at FIT's online symposium devoted to shoes.
My name is Tanya Melendez Escalante and I am Senior Curator of Education and Public Programs at The Museum at FIT.
It is my honor to welcome our Director and Chief Curator Dr. Valerie Steele and MFIT Curator Colleen Hill,
who will discuss the extraordinary appeal of shoes.
Enjoy the show.
[Dr. Valerie Steele] Shoes have long been collected and exhibited by museums,
but shoe exhibitions have really proliferated in recent years.
Ever since "Sex and the City" depicted young, urban women consuming high fashion shoes,
popular culture has been fixated on women's intimate relationship with shoes.
In 2012, when Colleen Hill and I organized "Shoe Obsession,"
there was a growing trend for extremely high heels and even higher prices.
One blogger demanded to know, "why are designer shoes so damn expensive, all of a sudden?"
As I walked through the exhibition, I overheard a visitor exclaim, "I've died and gone to shoe heaven."
With this, our latest exhibition devoted to the shoe collection of The Museum at FIT,
Colleen and I are exploring the history and significance of shoes.
Just why are people so fascinated with shoes?
Protection and enhanced mobility, supposedly the purpose of shoes, are obviously not the only reasons that we wear shoes.
They may not even be the most important reason.
As Giorgio Riello observes, in the 17th and 18th centuries high heels conveyed meanings of wealth,
power, and distinction in a hierarchical society.
High heels not only provided higher stature, but were also a self-inflicted sign of constrained mobility.
Only members of the upper classes, men and women alike, could wear shoes that clearly symbolized an inability to walk.
These are men's shoes from the late 17th century.
Yet, men and women wore different types of high heel shoes and women's heels tended to be higher, narrower, and tapered.
The identification of high heel shoes with erotic femininity was a turning point in shoe design.
Henceforth, men's and women's shoes, like their fashions in general,
would take clearly divergent paths with very clear gender distinctions.
By 1800, for example, when women's shoe fashions shifted from high heels to flat slippers,
men increasingly adopted military-style boots, thus symbolizing respectively, delicate women and powerful men.
High heels have gone in and out of fashion, but high-heeled shoes and boots have long been a powerful sexual fetish for men.
Tom Ford spoke for many when he said, "it's hard not to be sexy in a pair of high-heeled shoes."
And by the 1970s, fetish shoes and boots had begun to influence fashionable footwear.
By the time Helmut Newton was creating his photographs of powerful women,
he no longer had to resort to fetish shoe stores because major designers like Versace were creating such erotic shoes and boots.
Male fetishism appears to be closely related to sexual fantasies of the phallic woman,
but why do so many women obsessively collect shoes?
I find it hard to believe that this is associated with a pre-Oedipal sense of longing for unity with the lost mother.
Our contemporary fascination with shoes, like our increasing consumption of shoes,
may be a type of commodity fetishism related to developments in the global fashion system.
Yet there's no doubt that women also seem to have an emotional, even erotic, subtext to their longing for shoes.
Shoes have also long been associated with socioeconomic status.
Until recently, wealthy people tended to prefer custom-made shoes,
like this wingtip oxford by John Lobb or these gold slippers by Andre Perugia.
Today, however, the vast majority of shoes, even expensive ones, are ready-to-wear.
The quality of materials and workmanship continue to be important,
but so are the status of the fashion brand and the sometimes artificial rarity of the shoe.
Sneakers began to become really important in men's wardrobes in the mid-1980s.
In women's too of course, but for men, sneakers became increasingly associated with famous athletes and rappers.
As Elizabeth Semmelhack observes, quote, "today's sneakers are worn around the world
and in many ways could be considered the most democratic form of footwear.
Yet commodification and branding have transformed some into highly coveted objects of desire
that are increasingly central to men's fashion."
Sneakers, she points out, "are associated not only with athletic prowess
but also with exclusivity and shifting constructions of masculinity," end quote.
Quote "shoes affect our perceptions of others and our perceptions of self,"
writes Russell Belk, whose research indicates that most Americans believe that
quote "their footwear is an extension and expression of themselves," end quote.
Shoes are thought to reveal information about the wearer's age, gender, social status, sexuality, ethnicity, taste and personality.
For adolescents in particular, quote, "shoes are a key signifier of their identities.
Fairy tales and myths have long told us that shoes are magical objects,
but it's extraordinary how widely this is still believed today"
Many people believe that shoes may even be capable of, quote, "magically transforming them."
Not only will shoes change their appearance or athletic capacity, but, quote, "their lives will be changed utterly," end quote.
Shoes matter because we believe that shoes proclaim who we are and who we could be.
In the past, our identity was essentially limited to our position in society: male, female, upper class, working class,
while today, it's more subjectively defined.
Shoes have become more important in recent decades, in large part because of developments in the fashion system,
resulting in a greater variety of footwear, which influences how we consume the objects with which we craft our individual identities.
Manolos or Nikes? Ballerinas or Birkenstocks? Shoe are you?
Colleen, would you like to talk about shoe designers and brands which play such an important role in the modern fascination with shoes?
[Colleen Hill] I would love to, thank you.
Well, as you mentioned, Valerie, the important and expensive designer shoes really began to rise during the 1990s,
and there were a few high-end shoe brands that became household names when they were prominently featured on television shows,
including "Sex and the City."
Uh, Sarah Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw, had a real obsession with shoes,
and the mishaps that went in tandem with buying or wearing them helped to make her character more relatable.
So, for example, we acquired these Jimmy Choo sandals for the exhibition because they had such a great moment on the show.
As Carrie dashes to catch the last ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan,
her foot slips out of one of her slingback high-heeled sandals,
and the ferry pulls away, and she calls out "wait, wait I lost my Choo."
For anyone who has attempted to get around in such beautiful but impractical shoes in New York City, or really anywhere,
this scene really hits home.
And it was one of many such moments
in "Sex and the City" in which shoes became minor characters in their own right.
What I find really interesting about the history of designer shoes, however,
is that there were a number of early, important labels that were known for their quality and their trendsetting designs
that we may not be familiar with today and I view these as precursors to the Blahniks and the Louboutins of today.
We're really fortunate to have some interesting, early examples in The Museum at FIT collection.
These shoes, for example, were made by a German-born, Paris-based, shoemaker named Alexandre Sultzer
and he was well known in the mid to late 19th century and supplied shoes for the Queen of Saxony.
Perhaps not surprisingly, providing shoes for royalty proved to be a key to success in shoemaking
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Peter Yapp, who made these shoes, was a prominent London-based shoemaker,
whose finely crafted styles were worn by the royal court.
And this design, which was inspired by 18th century fashion,
was most recently featured in our exhibition "Ravishing: The Rose In Fashion."
By the 1920s, Andre Perugia's luxurious creations had established him as one of the first celebrity shoe designers.
Numerous stars wore his designs and they included Josephine Baker,
the Vaudeville entertainer, Mistinguett and Gloria Swanson.
He also famously collaborated with important fashion designers, including Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Hubert de Givenchy.
I wanted to also include some shoes from the 1920s because this was an especially important time for shoes.
As hemlines rose to knee length by the middle of the decade, shoes were more visible than ever before.
This example is from Pinet, which was a prominent French label established during the 19th century,
and they exemplify the vogue for elaborate embroidery on shoes from this era.
Salvatore Ferragamo emigrated from Italy to California when he was only 16 years old
and he quickly became known for his one-of-a-kind creations for Hollywood actresses,
and that led him to become known as the shoemaker to the stars.
He later became known for his innovative silhouettes and his unusual choices of materials.
This is a great example of his invisible sandal, which is made using clear fishing line.
Uh, this example also includes his famous curved heel, which is known as the "F heel"
and this was a real technical feat that involved joining two precisely carved pieces of wood
and covering them with leather to provide a seamless appearance.
Paris-born Roger Vivier made his couture shoe debut in 1938, designing a line of shoes for Elsa Schiaparelli,
but some of his most famous work was from the mid-20th century, particularly in collaboration with Christian Dior.
Both had a real affection for the most luxurious materials
and Vivier's early use of the stiletto heel complemented Dior's elegant and sinuous silhouettes.
Today, the Vivier label continues its tradition of making shoes that are both
fashion forward and meticulously crafted, as you can see in this beautiful example.
These Anello and Davide boots were one of the most famous styles of the 1960s.
This was a London-based brand that became famous for selling shoes to The Beatles,
which really underscores how popular culture began to play a role in the success of designer shoes.
The band's boots were a combination of a classic Chelsea boot, which is an ankle high style with elasticized sides,
and a high Cuban heel.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney purchased this style in the early 1960s and it became an icon of swinging London.
What I love about this particular pair was that it was worn by the American fashion leader Jane Holzer,
which highlights the style's unisex appeal
By the mid-1980s, fashion editors were asserting that shoes were the most important accessory of the decade.
They were no longer purchased to simply complete a look—
shoes were making the look.
When Manolo Blahnik began his career in the early 1970s, his work was best known to fashion insiders,
but by the time these shoes were created in the mid-1980s,
his lively designs had established him as one of the biggest names in footwear.
During the 21st century, shoes from high fashion labels have become an increasingly important part of runway looks.
These Prada mules, for example, were part of a collection with the theme of hot rod cars.
While Thom Browne's models wore these ice skate-inspired platforms
on a runway that looked like a frozen lake during his fall 2017 collection.
Unlike Prada shoes, which were commercially available, this design was intended only for the catwalk.
This recent design by Aurora James, working under her label "Brother Vellies,"
attests to the current importance of shoes that are both beautiful and produced in a socially responsible way.
James's shoes are artisanally handmade in locations around the globe, from Kenya to Mexico,
with the intent of providing jobs and honoring the people who inspired the styles.
Sustainably sourced fabrics and vegetable dyed leathers are also worked into the designs.
And finally, statement-making shoes for men have also become an important part of contemporary fashion.
Christian Louboutin expanded his business to include men's shoes in 2011
and this style is a take on the Love flat from 1991, which is one of the designers earliest creations.
And this pairing really brings us full circle to the time when designer shoes began to make more of an impact than ever.
I hope you all enjoy the symposium and the rest of the talks we have on shoes today.