bloody SHOES
it’s about identity, about communicating who we are to the world around us Sabrina Maddeaux
if we kept them in some device that didn’t let them breathe?”
If you’ve ever taken a boxing class or played hockey and caught a whiff of your hands after an hour in airstarved gloves, you know she’s right. However, it’s socially acceptable to move about barehanded – not so much for walking around barefooted. While we might imagine the taboo to be about health or sanitation, it’s really linked to identifying as part of a certain class. We have a long history of using shoes as a communication tool to tell the world who we are, and in turn, we learn a lot about a person from the shoes they wear. A top society reporter once told me he can most easily assess people’s status and wealth by looking at their shoes. Suddenly, the old adage about judging a man by his shoes doesn’t seem so capricious.
One of the most masterful brands when it comes to linking shoes and identity is Nike. Consider the Air Jordan franchise, which first debuted in the winter of 1985 to mass hysteria and still sells millions of shoes each year. Jordans took the marketplace by storm and created a cult of loyal “Jordan Heads” not only because they looked cool, but because they promised to help wearers “be like Mike.” Calvin Fowler, owner of Air Jordan-only consignment boutique Jordan Heads Brooklyn, once told Newsweek, “The guy played with a full-blown flu. He couldn’t walk off the court. That drive and that ambition transfers into the sneakers as something tangible that we can hold and touch.”
As a result of the brand association, Jordans are linked to a sense of accomplishment – not just in basketball skill (plenty of nonplayers buy in, too), but in terms of achieving your dreams, embodying their namesake’s determination and unstoppable work ethic and leaving your mark on history. In short, they represent the American Dream. And Nike is fully aware of this association. The company releases the shoes in limited quantities and, inevitably, some people are left behind (also like the American Dream).
Of course, the profound influence of shoes goes beyond Jordans and Louboutins. Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum is a monument to the importance of footwear with over 13,000 artifacts in its collection. In May, the museum will host Manolo Blahnik: The Art of Shoes. The exquisite heels, famously beloved by Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City, aren’t flashy or trendy; they’ve maintained the same aesthetic for decades.
Because of this, many consider Manolos to be the antithesis to Louboutins. A woman who wears Manolos isn’t a fashion victim, but someone who has a classic and innate sense of style. Vogue editor-inchief Anna Wintour famously wears only Manolos. She’s been doing so since 1994. As much as Louboutins are symbols of ambition and earned power, Manolos represent the establishment; those who’ve already made it: an upper class that equates showiness with tackiness and simply don’t feel it necessary to try so hard to stand out. Manolos, in this sense, are the “old money” of shoes.
By contrasting Manolos and Louboutins, we might come to understand what specific brands represent for those who sport such footwear, but the history of heels in general also reveals how the symbolism of shoes trumps their faculty. Worn by upper class men in the 17th century as a symbol of what they didn’t have to do – walking, manual labour, waiting for the bus – heels weren’t considered proper footwear for women until the 18th century.
In The Age of Enlightenment, men might have been seen as inherently rational beings regardless of class and given the right to vote and own land, but women, on the other hand, were considered irrational beings. Of course, wearing heeled footwear is neither rational nor practical, so it fell out of style for men and became associated with womanhood. That heels have never come back into style for mainstream men reflects the continued disempowerment of women.
Numerous studies show that it’s advantageous for a man to be taller – it can garner a more attractive mate, more respect from peers and even a promotion with higher earnings. So, why not wear heeled shoes? It’s because a man stands more to lose by giving up some of his male privilege and being associated with femininity than he has to gain by increased height. Remember when Marco Rubio dared to wear stacked-heel ankle boots during his 2016 campaign? The incident was dubbed “Bootgate” and widely mocked. “There’s nothing inherently gendered about high heels,” Elizabeth Semmelhack, Bata Museum curator, told me in a 2015 interview. “If the feminine high heel becomes linked to actual power, then men would be as happy to wear it as women.”
Certainly, shoes have a faculty to them. There are elements of travel and exploration that would be impossible without protective footwear. But the primary function of shoes, whether sneakers, stilettos or even Crocs, isn’t about their practicality; it’s about identity, about communicating who we are to the world around us. That’s why riding a camel in a pair of Louboutins isn’t nearly as ludicrous as it might at first seem.
THE HISTORY OF FOOTWEAR – FROM HEELS TO RUNNING SHOES – REVEALS HOW THE SYMBOLISM OF SHOES HAS ALWAYS TRUMPED THEIR FACULTY. FUNCTION IS SECONDARY TO REPRESENTATION.