The Avant Garde Shoe

This shoe is part of a collection by designer Kobi Levi. Super clever, a bit impish even, and according to a message from my feet, mostly painful. Art as Fashion generally tends to not concern itself with incidentals like practicality. If these shoes are as unwearable as some do look, are they then simply Fashion as imagined and/or represented through Art? Might one even make the case against wearing them at all? Or is the physical sacrifice required to wear them part of the art itself? 

"Beauty is pain" is the tireless maxim that helps to maintain certain aesthetic standards and acts as a measuring stick to see where women (and men) fall on the commitment line. The sexiest shoes are often the most painful. But for this pain the shoe will elongate your leg, improve your posture, and most importantly, add a degree of sophistication to whatever you are wearing. However superficial, a (tasteful) heel will bump you up a class.

The closet is a gallery that features private collections of pieces we need or value. So why the unchecked materialism over the painful shoes? Sure they may be beautiful, but besides being essentially unwearable, they don't necessarily have the aesthetic and artistic value of pieces like that of Mr. Levi. His shoes can simply be stand-out pieces in one's collection. 

More than a few women (myself included) have purchased beautiful shoes only to discover their true function as a Medieval Torture Device. After recovering from the Night of Shoe Regret, we attempt to break them in, and click around the apartment a few times, our gym-sock covered feet pleading for slippers. If we do not return them, and continue to wear them out, have we entered into a type of beauty martyrdom? Is there a perverse pride in the physical sacrifice? (American/Western) Society values self-discipline as positive trait that demonstrates civility, education, breeding, etc. in an individual, as manifested in immediate observations such as smoking, weight, teeth, and even shoes. A thin woman wearing stilettos sends a different message to the world than an overweight woman in flip-flops. 

This is all fairly obvious, and nowadays one might argue that shoes both sophisticated and comfortable do exist. To wear Mr. Levi's shoes however, is to submit oneself to their impracticality and prove oneself worthy of their aesthetic. 

(From Mr. Levi's blog :)

"...The combination of the image and footwear creates a new hybrid and the design/concept comes to life. The piece is a wearable sculpture. It is "alive" with/out the foot/body. Most of the inspirations are out of the "shoe-world", and give the footwear an extreme transformation. The result is usually humoristic with a unique point of view about footwear. Another aspect of the creation is the realization. All the pieces are hand-made in my studio. The challenging technical development is the key to bring the design to life in the best way."