Shoe by Marc Jacobs
Sep 14th, 2007 by maoch
For more information, see the article by Robin Givhan in The Washington Post, September 13, C1.
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…to the adage that there is noting new in fashion….
I worked at a theatre that had a pair of shoes constructed like this. The shoes were from the 1950’s and were either Haute Couture or from a very exclusive boutique. They were a wonderful black velvet or suede—I cannot remember—and a size 7Narrow. Only one actress could wear them and when she did they caused her to “prance” rather than walk, due to the construction of the shoe.
The shoe is actually constructed of a very hard piece of steel in the shank of the shoe (running from heel to toe), with an equally hard piece of steel extending from the box of the shoe towards the heel. The angle that is created by these pieces of steel supports the weight of the wearer.
While Mr. Jacobs’ shoe is obviously a modernist interpretation of a shoe—placing the heel in such a position that it does what a heal does without appearing to do what we expect it to do—it is also at the same time challenging the physicality/gender of the wearer. In that, as I experienced with the actress, it is very hard for a women to walk naturally in these shoes due to their center of gravity being changed to account for the structure of the shoe. The gait required by the shoe is actually a hyper-feminine gait that is often associated with the Geisha walk of Japan (think mincing step).
Once again, fashion provides us with an item of clothing that re-enforces culturally defined gender roles. In this case, by altering the natural gait of the female to an artificial gait that supports the concept of “feminine”. And as all high heels do, the shoe makes the calf muscle more prominent, thus changing the shape of the natural female leg, turning it into a leg shape generally normalized as feminine and by extension, the leg becomes an erotic object, generally, for the opposite gender.