Our intern-turned-full-time-staffer (I think her official job title is “Head of All That Artsy Stuff”) Alexandra wears some of the coolest things. These transparent jelly shoes make her look like she’s walking on air.

Photography by Deua Medeiros

“Fashion is a social force that functions effectively not only as an economic engine but as a semiotic system that transmits social and political messages by means of nonverbal language rich in signs, symbols and iconography.” - Ayala Raz, The Equalizing Shoe

For most people, shoes are not the first thing that come to mind when thinking about Jewish cultural heritage. However, after taking a look at Jews and Shoes, a compilation of fourteen academic essays on the apparently unique relationship Jewish people have had with shoes, one must rethink the assumption that shoes are of no particular importance.

Given the Jewish people’s legacy as eternal wanderers, it makes sense that footwear may have taken on a deeper meaning for them. However, this book is far more detailed than that. Split into four thematic sections, it covers a variety of cultural instances where shoes play an important role: religion and the Bible, memorials, political ideology and the arts. To my mind, the strongest essay in this book is a fascinating analysis that questions the commodity fetishism of the piles of shoes found at Holocaust memorials. Having never been to a Holocaust memorial myself, I was surprised to learn of their emphasis on displaying the personal items of those interred and killed at the camps to show the magnitude of the numbers of possessions that were methodically sorted into piles by Nazis intending to redistribute them later. The author, Jeffrey Feldman, does an absolutely superb job of relating memorial attendees’ very visceral reactions to these piles upon piles of shoes of all sorts and the sights, smells, and textures that come from all that rotting leather. The questions posed are not only thought provoking in terms of the legacy of the Holocaust, but about how artefacts and museum objects are structured and displayed in order to evoke an emotional response.

An ancient Roman sandal. Essentially the type of shoe referred to in the book as a ‘biblical sandal’.

Unfortunately, not all of the essays are as well done. I found the first section, dealing with religious and biblical references to shoes, to be weak and tedious. In this section more than any other, I was struck by the dullness of the academic writing style and found that these essays in particular suffer from the Cultural Studies vice of overanalyzing commonplace objects trying to extract more meaning than there is. Sometimes a shoe is just a shoe. At times it also felt as if I needed a working knowledge of the Bible in order to really understand the points that a few of these authors were trying to make. Maybe I’m wrong, and that reference to shoes in Exodus is more significant than I think, however, not having sat down with a copy of the Bible before tearing into this I was left feeling a bit drowned in biblical minutiae.

The profession of shoemaker has historically and traditionally be held by Jews.

That said, although it has its weaknesses, I do recommend this book. Even though it only deals with one culture, as a non-Jewish reader I was fascinated by the importance of shoes in human history, and, as one author puts it, “the communicative role of footwear.” Plus, since this is formatted as a collection of essays, you can dive in and out as you please. At the very least the wonderfully rhyming title will surely make you smile.

Jews and Shoes edited by Edna Nahshon (Berg, 2008).
Reviewed by Anisha Seth.

“immune” by Marina Dempster

It was easy, when I was little, to imagine myself inside fairy tales; to think Peter Pan might come to my window or enchanted lands appear in my closet. Though I’m more than old enough to know better, nothing’s really changed. There is a part of me that will always believe in outlandish, magical things - and what’s more, I’m thoroughly convinced my life is better than if this was not so. It’s also one of the reasons I’m perpetually delighted by clothing and costume. Dress is instantly transformative; an accessible door to other worlds and selves. To me, there is a particular magic in the collaboration between clothing and art. It is intimately relatable yet untethered by reality - endless possibilities in the shape of me.

So imagine my delight when, on a very dull winter morning, I saw these:

Designed by Marina Dempster, these extraordinarily ferocious shoes are such stuff as the rulers of kingdoms should wear. (Just last year, WORN was fortunate to have Dempster participate in our ART & SOLE shoe redesign exhibit with a pair of gold-winged Keds.)

From now until the end of the month, the Ontario Craft Council (as a participant in the Toronto International Design Festival) is showing an exhibit entitled Body + Object: “Eighteen artists explore the relationship between the body and the many forms in which it can ornament, present and represent itself.” While, for me, these shoes were the highlight, once I tore my eyes away I found the rest of the work fascinating and lovely and definitely worth seeing.
- g.

Here’s the truth: I am not really a shoe person. I know, I know, this statement is ironic coming from a girl who worked on the “Shoe Issue” of a fashion publication (not to mention my part time job in high school selling Crocs and Ugg knockoffs in Ottawa, but please, don’t remind me about that). It’s not to say that I don’t like or appreciate shoes, but being a woman with size 12 feet, I’ve been forced to follow the “take what I can find” approach, which more often than not consists of wearing clunky black grandma shoes. Possibly out of sheer cruelty, my editor decided to punish me by giving me a book to review filled with sumptuous images of glorious heels I’ll never be able to find in my size.

There are certain names that even the tamest of shoe lovers are familiar with: Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, the inimitable Christian Louboutin. This book does not look at these designers. Rather, New Shoes is about, well, just that – the new guys, the up-and-coming designers, those who have worked for or collaborated with more famous names but have not just yet hit the same level of celebrity. New Shoes focuses on twenty five of these yet-to-be-superstar designers, each one with their own unique style and background. Every designer is dedicated ten pages, beginning with an introduction. In it, an overview of their body of work is intertwined with quotes about the artist’s vision, often containing some insightful if occasionally repetitive thoughts (read: a lot of the designers compare creating shoes to architecture).


That being said, the book ultimately focuses on the shoes themselves. Detailed, glossy pictures make up the majority of the book, alternating between close-ups of the shoes and full out photo shoots of skinny models wearing mini dresses and neon coloured tights to properly show off their kicks. While New Shoes could easily stop at letting us “ooh” and “aah” over the pretty pictures, the editors make an effort to point out the difficulty of crafting their unique designs, and the photos are accompanied by descriptions of the subtler minutiae of each shoe. Details like the use of whip stitching or hardwood heels are pointed out, made usable by the inclusion of a glossary at the back. While the book is far from being a comprehensive guide to all things footwear, it does give an accurate perspective of the qualities that make each shoe unique and the difficulties behind designing them. As a bonus, many of the designers include preliminary sketches to give the reader a sense of the creative process.

Admittedly, some of the designers do stick out more than others. Bénoît Méléard, a French designer who has worked for Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, takes a more conceptual approach to his designs, and his influence has since been seen in other designers’ recent runway collections. Other standouts include menswear designer Marco Censi, whose work has been described as “footwear for the modern-day dandy,” and Julia Lundsten, whose shoes are probably the architecture-iest of the bunch.

This picture heavy book is definitely more show than tell, but it provides an accurate depiction of the twenty five designers’ artistic visions and actual creative output. If nothing else, it’s definitely a good primer for those looking to expand their shoe vocabulary.

by Sue Huey and Rebecca Proctor. Laurence King Publishers, 2007
reviewed by Anna Fitzpatrick