The New York Times Magazine: Collectors Edition, How shoes are hazardous.
This is no new fad or hidden interest. Women love shoes. At least modern women love shoes. It was not till the years of the flapper, the 1920s, when women won the right to vote and shorten their hemlines did the shoe become a focal point. This does not mean shoes were ignored till then, but they weren’t admired in quite the same way.
The Chopine was a shoe worn by Venetian nobel women and courtesans, originally as a platformed over shoe to protect from mud and rain from 1400-1700. This shoe was never seen but it was also a status symbol. The height of the shoe related to the status of the woman wearing it. The tallest Chopine reached the height of 20 inches and women had to have an attendant to help them walk. So for hundreds of years women have associated shoe height with status and power. It is not clear if women actually enjoyed wearing the Chopine but they did go to great lengths, or heights, to keep them in style for 300 years.
Modern women don’t go that far. Heel height has been on the incline over the past century to present day, starting in the 20s at 2 inches to 2.5 inches on the average and a 3 inch heel being more average to the modern day woman of 2012. The current fashion industry defines high heels any where from 3.5 inches to 5 inches anything above that can breach the definition of fashionable and the low brow term stripper heel becomes applicable. A more polite term might be “jewelry for the feet” but these super tall heels become more like fetishized objects then shoes worn to protect and enhance the foot.
With the rise of the pin up in the 1940s the heel height went up with it. This does not only relate to the need to look more like a pin up girl but women became more sexualized in general. They could wear pants, they could wear higher heels, they could do what they want. Shoes are meant to protect the foot of the wearer, once that goal is accomplished the discomfort of a high heeled, expensive shoe is forgotten. If it looks good it feels good.
Collecting interesting shoe designs or historical shoes may seem like an odd collection but many notable people and museums do just so. Many women who can afford expensive shoes will buy them just because they can and in that way they are a status symbol. But in another way is it a sickness on the level of hoarding. Some women who can not necessarily afford limited edition shoes or a $2,000 pair of Manolo Bhalnik go into debt just to have them.
The drive to collect and conquer the shoe is not only limited to women. Many of these women who collect shoes own shoes designed by men. Men who design foot ware love women's shoes as well and they want what looks good, unique and desirable and don’t care for comfort. But men who collect shoes often collect sneakers. Known as Sneaker-heads or Sneaker-freaks these men seek out limited edition or expensive sneakers that they don’t necessarily ever wear. In the 1980s with the birth of the Air Jordan and the growth of hip-hop music, which made the sneaker a fashion statement, sneaker culture surged. Various stores that show case sneakers in glass boxes, much like a museum would fine art, have popped up through out the country paying homage to great sneakers of the past and to limited edition sneakers offered by major brands like Nike, Adidas and Reebok.
What makes these boarder line shoe fanatics different from hoarders is that they have extremely organized collections. Yes, sometimes they are out of hand and in storage at a location other then the persons home but the shoe obsession is a well organized one. Another trait hoarders have is to alienate themselves from others so that collecting things become more important then people around them. This might be a trait shared with the shoe obsessed. Shoe obsessed people will go to great lengths to find a specific shoe, they will also at times go into debt, not caring how much money is spent on shoes or the financial outcome of a shoe binge. Shoes make people feel good about themselves. Its like the act of eating ice cream after a hard day. When shoe love hits it hits hard. For some it even fills a void.
I have sent these questions to The Bata Shoe Museum curator, the owner of Ma Petite Shoe and the Temple University Shoe Museum curator. I am anxiously awaiting their replies.
- How long have you worked with shoes?
- What brought you to The Bata Shoe Museum?
- What kind of background do you have in shoes?
- What is your favorite shoe in the collection?
- What in your opinion is the oddest shoe in the Bata collection?
- Do you personally collect shoes?
- Are you interested in women’s shoes only?
- Why do you think women have such a passion for collecting shoes?
- Have you ever seen this passion become more of an obsession?
- Who are some famous shoe collectors/obsessors?
- Do you see shoes as status symbol, sex symbol or power symbol?
- Do you think men have a place in shoe collecting?
- What makes a man’s shoe obsession different from a woman’s?
- What is the oldest shoe in the Bata collection?
- Can you provide a timeline of historic shoes?
