Amphibious shoes!
Some funny things land in one’s email. This came with a collection of fantastically creative shoe designs. I doubted the validity of several including this one so I Googled it. And sure enough, there is a site – but no guarantee that they really sell shoes – http://www.hightideheels.be/Leer.html .
Design – this seems to be the perfect project assignment. Fashion to the extreme – but here, in this instance, it’s a novel thought…from work to play – or a seamless transition…if you live by the water. So let’s try for office to hiking boots where the fine finish of leather is replicated with weather-proof materials suitable for the outdoors! Or bicycle shoes with removable heels – ride to work and stick on the heels when you get there! “Think outside the box” the instructor will council his students. You can hear him now…hearken back to those days in class when you had to design a box to house a raw egg that you could successfully drop from 5 stories up and NOT break the egg. Yes, those were the days…
Clothing – if form follows function – is to cover, provide protection, and to make a “statement.” To make that “statement,” FASHION enters the picture. The function is often a spoof as well as the form – but what fun!
And then there’s The Emperor’s New Clothes – that timeless tale told by Hans Christian Anderson that exposes the farce and illuminates the innocent observation of the child who won’t buy into the idea. But we buy it season after season – the fashion industry that must continue to create in order that we make new, want new, further the industry and the economics that surround it and trickle down from it. It’s a major element of our free-market system – of our capitalistic society. It’s a beautiful thing – creativity – positively reinforced with recognition and perhaps even prosperity.
It’s in the eye of the beholder and the one with the largest pocketbook as to whether honesty in design is perpetuated or merely the idea. Whether real or shock value, humor, farce or frivolity – fashion’s validity is assessed in the present and in the future for generations. From the fashion design of hair styles and clothing, furnishings and decorative accessories to vehicles, industrial design, and architecture- all constantly in motion and time usually validates or not the true merit of that design.
