shoe as politic
Posted in Uncategorized by will - Jun 23, 2010When we look at a persons shoes we get a sense for what they do, we can know what kind of situation or task they imagine they will become involved with. We have shoes for running, for work, to convey social caste in leisure.
These are visual language, and there is a lot to be conveyed here, but there is also a language of action in the shoe, in our choice we convey not only what we are doing, but affirming means of production. We are choosing how the shoe was made, interacting with someone and funding activity that ideally speaks to our vision of society.
This is a choice that is our right, and one that is limited by lack of use. We too often focus only on visual language, and so we have fewer companies to choose from, because it is easy for one producer to produce many visual forms.
Here are two leather soled short boots for the kind of people we are, those who would choose an expensive general item, rather than many cheap specialized items. We want a shoe suited to work, but also good looking, perhaps conveying respect for work, or the sentiment that we take pride in it’s aesthetics. This shoes classic form references the craftsman and the workshop, it’s construction methods speak of small, human scale industry, of good wages, of light and clean production, repairability, and reduced reliance on plastics.
Both are seeing a lot of popularity on the internet these days, and I hope it is a hard value that is driving people to want these things instead of a superficial desire to reference a labor and sustainability oriented image.
The first shoe is the whites semi dress boot.
Whites is a legendary company, known more in the world of forest workers than the world of fashion. They make amazing products that they stand behind. They don’t talk a lot about philosophy though, or rational, they are an old fashioned company that makes good things and hopes that people will talk about them. These are expensive shoes, but they will last forever. Both of these boots are constructed in a way that is considered reversible- they can be fully taken apart and rebuilt, any structural element can be replaced. The most common of these repairs is resoling, especially on a leather boot, and heel rebuilding.
The second shoe is The Wolverine 1000 mile boot.
Wolverine is also an old work boot company, but one that became really large and has true corporate PR and marketing and product development offices. Their thousand mile boot is a recent re-release of their older boots, done to cater to the renewed interest in craft products. Their website is polished, their marketing and retail distribution are spot on. They will not rebuild your boots as whites will, they are not a small workshop. They are however selling a really beautiful boot, a lighter build that the Whites, but fully welted, something that any cobbler can repair for you, and a few hundred dollars cheaper that the Whites.
These are both gorgeous shoes, and until we have some true small shoemakers to represent our growing community and cleave more closely to our values, they will serve us well.