Shoe-speak

Elle McPherson in Jimmy Choo Shoes for Elton John's Aids Charity Book Four Inches

Essay-satire


Shoe-speak

Silhouettes, glances, footprints-in-the-sand, colours, hair, lipstick, fragrances, flashes-all this and more press our buttons all the time. We react, incoherently, from the unconscious, instantly throwing up signals of approval or rejection, wanting the insufferably cute little girl in the red shoes strangled at once and the nice policeman in the hob-nailed sandals made from tyre given a cold glass of water at the back door. But such are the stuff of dreams! Even so, perhaps the big daddy of personal symbols are indeed to do with our feet, more precisely what we choose to clad them in. We have very strong views on the subject, absolute tales from the unfathomable. That is why we’re so decisive when it comes to our choice of sandals, slippers, jooties, Chinese heavy metal numbers, leather-soled clicker-clackers, rubber-soled brothel-creepers, moulded heel-toe-arch supporting bits of high-tech, little neat fetishes or big in-your-face statements.

Shoes are important-the Pope wears “the shoes of the fisherman,” meaning those belonging to the apostle Peter who was the first Pope, and, before that, a fisherman. In Kerala, amongst the matriarchal Nairs, when a lover is given the push, the civilised signal from the rejecter is to put his shoes outside the door.

We achieve a net effect with our shoes, most of us that is, other than my friend who opened a shoe shop for very small children in a prominent location and went completely broke for lack of customers. But here I’m talking of shoes on feet, bought ones, and they speak. One says, “Look, I’m practical, comfortable and sturdy and my owner says he wants to live in me”. Another, a female pair, says, “I’m made for pleasure and I don’t have to walk much you see…” Some of this chat is culturally loaded, even sexist one might say, but once they start, shoes do talk all the time but rarely above the monotone and cadence of a John Wayne. Which brings me to cowboys and careerists, both of whom generally prefer dying with their boots on because then their ghostly selves can come through the swing doors anytime and not worry about the broken glass lurking in the sawdust on the floor. For the Sherlocks and Watsons amongst us I want to suggest many a rewarding afternoon sitting below stairs to assess the footwear going by. They can catalogue what of it is beautiful, ugly, blunt, sharp, decorated, plain, buckled, zipped, strappy, dull, exciting, cheap, expensive, soft, hard, sleazy, ostentatious, complicated, kinky, playful, dominant or understated. You never know when one or more of this expression kills someone and then you’re in business, just like that!

All of us need to fill in the following blanks I’m afraid. It’s that out-of-date pomade shiny shoe-salesman with the fetching gap-tooth who’s been at me to assist. So, “Tell me Sam,” he yells above the roar of the Dakota engines, “When I send her away, from this tarmac forever, what should I remember her for…is it her comfort or her style?”

Or, leaving Casablanca and the Bogey alone before the Fida discovers it and paints 88 instant canvases on the subject, is it best when there is total rejection of the whole business as in the Hussain? This, as a proposition, is definitely neat as a malt but how many of us want to go barefoot and be pregnant with ideas all the time?

Thing is, the damn things speak! They talk to us and about us to all and sundry. They describe us and proxy for us. They show off and celebrate our sense of free choice- making us wear it if the shoe fits, bear in mind that we musn’t get too big for our boots and assure us we wouldn’t be caught dead in ‘em!

Shoes illustrate rites of passage and succession too-we talk of stepping-into-the-shoes-of, being man enough to fill the shoes of… They comment and bitch-calling us down-at-heel and judge us in our “cheap shoes.” They cause our determination to burn-shoe-leather in the pursuit of our dreams to be admired or laughed at.

The good news is we can get our own back. When we wear it on the other foot we can be supremely annoying as miss goody-two-shoes (don’t know a male/universal version of this one), dominate in our jackboots (with ways and means), tantalise in stilettos, be urban cowboys in hand-made knee-highs with risen-phoenix embroidery, corporate or drunk in Irish Brogues...

We can wear square-toes or pointy, round or roomy, safety shoes with steel toe-caps in mines or gum-boots in mud. We can become self-financing brand ambassadors in Nike, Adidas or Reebok or wear patent, plastic, rubber, polished, scuffed, faux, nubuck, suede or a designer chop-suey of all of the above particularly, (and what is it with these people), in red or white! We can smile, play Cinderella in glass slippers, drink out of them if we like and practice other euphemisms including plain laying offa dem blue suede shoes!

Abstinence apart, shoes are probably the most commonplace of fetishes expressing the fascination innocently enough by being collected, kept and cared for better than Imelda Marcos! Shoes express sensuality, power, luxury, well-being and a hundred other human emotions from knowing where the shoe pinches to being comfortable as an old shoe and also make for strong and sometimes bizarre fashion statements. And perhaps it is this ability to be many things to many people that inspired Elton John’s Aids Charity to rustle up a coffee-table book just released called “Four inches”. It features 44 wonderfully high-achieving ladies including Padma Lakshmi, Kate Moss, Serena Williams and the Duchess of York – photographed delectably nude in nuttin besides Cartier jewels and 4 inch Jimmy Choo pedestals! And O yeah… Kate Moss has this very nice cigar.


(972 words)
By Ghatotkach
Saturday, 04 June 2005