Enter the museum during the latest FIT exhibition, Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic for an in-depth look at how we relate to our shoes – physically, socially and psychologically – through over 300 pairs of shoes, boots, trainers and sandals selected from the museum’s permanent collection of 5,000 pairs.
Organized by museum director Dr. Valerie Steele and accompanied by a lavishly illustrated book, Shoes: the museum collection at FIT, published by Taschen with a foreword by Daphne Guinness – the exhibit opens with baby shoes, illustrating how we begin our life’s journey in fitted shoes, and follows with a shoe timeline and looping video with film and television clips exploring their symbolism in popular styles. Culture. Scenes from The Wizard of Oz, Saturday night fever, The breakfast club, Like mikeand sex and the city illustrate – subtly or overtly – the primary role shoes have played in our imaginations and our lives.
In the main gallery, themes of anatomy, identity and magic are explored through an eye-catching display that would appeal to any shopaholic. “The ’embodied turn’ in fashion studies has brought renewed attention to the intimate relationship between the body, clothing, and sense of self,” says Steele. “We invite visitors to ask themselves, shoe are you? Hence our three somewhat mysterious sounding themes.
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It’s no mystery, however, that few shoes are shaped like feet, so anatomy shows how we tend to stand and move differently and draw attention to different aspects of our bodies when we wear things like stilettos or flip flops. Identify explores how shoe styles and brands say a lot about our age, gender, social status, and even our sexuality. And then there’s the perception that the right pair of shoes can, like Magicenhance our prowess and change our lives.
A visual feast for any shoe lover, the exhibition offers an array of historic and iconic models, most of which have been donated 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 Garçons. Others were donated by fashion icons, style arbiters and collectors, including Lauren Bacall, Warhol muse “Baby” Jane Holzer, philanthropist Jean Shafiroff, model Veronica Webb, Simon Doonan, Michèle Gerber Klein, Tina Chow’s estate and, well, me.
The Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic The exhibit currently on display at the Museum at FIT includes everything from Gucci slippers to this pair of Nike Air Jordans.
I am in no way a designer of style, and fall rather into the more modest category of connoisseurs. In anticipation of the show and fell head over heels – pun intended – for MFIT after its 2018 expert-curated retrospective exhibition Norell: Dean of American FashionI donated several pairs of shoes from my closet, two of which are featured in the section on identify.
The first are ‘Romantic Jacquard’ evening slippers from Gucci’s spring 2016 collection, the fourth by Alessandro Michele, then the Italian luxury fashion house’s new creative director. To me, the rose-print silk jacquard, oversized appliques, rich blue quilted satin lining and matching grosgrain bow were the epitome of the bold new Gucci under Michele. I could wear them in the evening with a charcoal-colored suit or throw them on with jeans and a white oxford for lunch – either way, I felt they articulated my fashion intellect and level of taste perfectly.
Gucci’s “Romantic Jacquard” evening slippers are on display until December at the Museum at FIT in New York.
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 Removable Velcro reading things like DELETE, SELFISH, #THO and #RESPECT. I literally wore the blurry red billboards—with a Fall 2016 Comme des Garçon Homme Plus ensemble—to an art and tech-themed gala at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. the next year. Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen complimented my fashion choice, which was unique.
More than anything, this innovative exhibit offers visitors the opportunity to effortlessly relate to the subject, as well as the ability to draw their own conclusions about why they intentionally or unknowingly choose the shoes they make by wondering, shoe am I
Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic is on view until December 31 at the Museum at FIT.