A New Exhibition Explores the Soul of Footwear
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Step into the Museum at FIT’s latest exhibition, Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic for an in-depth look at how we relate to our footwear—physically, socially, and psychologically—through more than 300 featured pairs of shoes, boots, sneakers, and sandals culled from the museum’s permanent 5,000-pair collection.
Curated by the museum’s director, Dr. Valerie Steele—and accompanied by a sumptuously illustrated book, Shoes: The Collection of The Museum at FIT, published by Taschen with a preface by Daphne Guinness—the exhibition opens with baby shoes, illustrating how we begin our life’s journey in fitted footwear, and follows with a chronology of shoes and a looping video with film and television clips exploring their symbolism in popular culture. Scenes from The Wizard of Oz, Saturday Night Fever, The Breakfast Club, Like Mike, and Sex and the City exemplify—subtly or overtly—the starring role shoes have played in our imaginations and lives.
In the main gallery, the themes of anatomy, identity, and magic are explored through an eye-catching display that would entice any shopaholic. “The ‘embodied turn’ in fashion studies has brought renewed attention to the intimate relationship between body, dress, and sense of self,” explains Steele. “We are inviting visitors to ask themselves, Shoe are you? Hence our three, somewhat mysterious-sounding themes.”
It’s no mystery, however, that few shoes are actually shaped like feet, so anatomy shows how we tend to stand and move differently and draw attention to different aspects of our body when we wear things like stilettos or flip-flops. Identity explores how shoe styles and brands say a lot about our age, gender, social status, and even sexuality. And then there’s the perception that the right pair of shoes can, like magic, enhance our prowess and change our lives.
A visual feast for any shoe enthusiast, the exhibition offers an array of historic and iconic designs, most having been gifted to the museum’s “closet” over the years by designers and brands like Charles Jourdan, David Evins, Roger Vivier, Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Vivienne Westwood, Azzedine Alaïa, Nicholas Kirkwood, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Comme des Garçon. Others have been donated by fashion icons, arbiters of style, and collectors including Lauren Bacall, Warhol muse “Baby” Jane Holzer, philanthropist Jean Shafiroff, supermodel Veronica Webb, Simon Doonan, Michèle Gerber Klein, the Estate of Tina Chow, and, well, me.
I’m by no means a style-maker, and instead fall under the more modest category of connoisseur. In anticipation of the show and having fallen head over heels—pun intended—for MFIT after its expertly curated 2018 retrospective exhibition Norell: Dean of American Fashion, I donated several pairs of shoes from my closet, two of which are displayed in the section devoted to identity.
The first are “Romantic Jacquard” evening slippers from Gucci’s spring 2016 collection—the fourth from Alessandro Michele, the Italian luxury fashion house’s then newly-minted creative director. For me, the rose-printed silk jacquard, oversized appliques, rich blue quilted satin lining, and matching grosgrain bow were the epitome of the new, daring Gucci under Michele. I could wear them in the evening with a charcoal-colored suit or slip them on with jeans and white oxford for lunch—either way, I felt they perfectly articulated my fashion intellect and taste level.
In stylistic contrast, the second is a pair of Joshua Sanders “Snatch” slip-ons from summer 2016. Designed by Vittorio Cordella, CEO and creative director of the eccentric Italian brand, each sneaker’s synthetic red nap is covered with removable Velcro strips reading things like DELETE, SELFISH, #THO, and #RESPECT. Literally statement-making, I wore the fuzzy red billboards—together with a Comme des Garçon Homme Plus ensemble from fall 2016—to an art and technology-themed gala at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum the following year. Both Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen gave kudos for my fashion choice which was uniquely validating.
More than anything, this innovative exhibition offers visitors the ability to relate effortlessly to the subject matter, as well as the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about why they intentionally, or subconsciously, choose the footwear they do by asking themselves, shoe am I?
Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic is on view through through December 31 at the Museum at FIT.
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