Learning Agreement 2

L E A R N I N G A G R E E M E N T

Project Proposal (approximately 750 words – not including references)

Name

Shoes

MA Course

MA Ceramics

Date

Version Number

3

Project Title / Research Question

Proposed study / What? (100 word limit)

Give a brief description of your proposed study.

I want to make ceramic shoes because they represent a fusion of art and functionality, allowing for creative expression through an unconventional medium. Ceramic shoes challenge traditional footwear materials, opening up possibilities for unique textures, designs, and colour schemes. Additionally, the process of crafting ceramic shoes involves meticulous handwork and skill, providing a fulfilling artistic endeavor. By experimenting with ceramics, I can push the boundaries of both fashion and sculpture, creating statement pieces that are both visually striking and thought-provoking.

Rationale / Why? (100 word limit)

State the reasons behind your proposed study, including how it relates to the subject area and previous work in the field. You should include references to support your reasons.

I want to make ceramic shoes to bridge my passion for ceramics with innovative footwear design, reflecting a unique intersection of art and fashion. This endeavor builds on historical uses of ceramics in decorative arts while exploring new functional applications. Previous work in the field, like Kobi Levi's sculptural shoes, Rene Van den Berg and Iris van Herpen's avant-garde designs, inspires me to push boundaries further. By creating ceramic shoes, I aim to contribute to this evolving dialogue, merging aesthetics and utility, and challenging traditional notions of materials in fashion. This project will not only highlight my craftsmanship but also explore the potential of ceramics in contemporary design. I am particularly interested in the links between fashionable shoes and fetish footwear.

Aim & Objectives (200 word limit)

Clearly state the principal aim of the study. You are advised to state a single aim if possible. Then state the main objectives that need to be achieved in order to meet the aim.

I want to make ceramic shoes to bridge my passion for ceramics with innovative footwear design, reflecting a unique intersection of art and fashion. This endeavor builds on historical uses of ceramics in decorative arts while exploring new functional applications. Previous work in the field, like Kobi Levi's sculptural shoes, Rene Van den Berg and Iris van Herpen's avant-garde designs, inspires me to push boundaries further. By creating ceramic shoes, I aim to contribute to this evolving dialogue, merging aesthetics and utility, and challenging traditional notions of materials in fashion. This project will not only highlight my craftsmanship but also explore the potential of ceramics in contemporary design. I am particularly interested in the links between fashionable shoes and fetish footwear.

Plan / How? (250 word limit)

· Extensive literature review encompassing texts related to the history of shoes and contemporary analyses of footwear in. different cultures to provide a foundational understanding of the symbolic meanings and social role of shoes.

· The creative phase will involve experimenting with ceramic material and techniques to craft shoe designs that reflect the cultural narratives uncovered. Traditional and modern ceramic practices will be utilised.

· Comprehensive documentation process to record the creative journey, methodologies, and findings. This will create a body of work that celebrates the meaning of shoes.

· I will also analyse historical and contemporary examples of ceramic use in fashion and sculpture, drawing inspiration from artists like Kobi Levi and Iris van Herpen. Next, I will sketch initial designs, focusing on innovative shapes, textures, and color schemes that highlight the unique qualities of ceramics.

Intended Outcomes of Project / What - solution? (100 word limit)

Creating ceramic shoes influenced by fetishism aims to explore the intersection of art, fashion, and desire, producing provocative, visually captivating pieces that challenge conventional footwear norms. These shoes will emphasize extreme forms, intricate details, and bold aesthetics, evoking a sense of allure and intrigue. The intended outcomes include stimulating conversation around the role of fetishism in fashion, highlighting the artistic potential of unconventional materials, and showcasing the technical prowess required to blend ceramics with wearable art. Ultimately, this project seeks to push creative boundaries, offering a unique, thought-provoking perspective on both ceramics and fetish-inspired design.

References

Use the Harvard style of referencing.

LINDHOLM, C. 2015. Shoes: An Illustrated History, Rebecca Shawcross (2014). Clothing Cultures, 2, 327-331.

STEELE, V. & HILL, C. 2013. Shoe obsession. Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style, 112.

Introduction

Exotic shoes have been around for centuries. I plan to explore hoe shoes have evolved and the artists that have led the evolution of shoes. Sandals made of solid gold were found in the royal tombs in Ancient Egypt. I Vince six hundred years ago women walked around in chopines with platforms upto a foot high.The lotus shoes were brightly coloured and lavishly embroidered.

In the twentieth c century, Salvatore Ferragamo introduced platform shoes and ‘invisible sandles. Beth Levine invented spring-o-lator mules and topless shoes held to the sole with adhesive. Roger Vivier created concave stiletto and comma heels .

Over the last two decades there has been an explosion in the creativity of footwear design. Sexy lace-up sandles, sky-high platform heels, and decorated shoes are seen on fashionable men and women everywhere. I am going to explore designs from fashion icons Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Jan Taminiau, Francesca Castagnacci, Rem D. Koolhaas, Kobe Levi, Julian Hakes, Mihai Albu and Marloes Ten Homer.

Extreme shoes have been around for a very long time, for example Chinese women who underwent the painful process of foot binding to achieve a foot length of three inches or less.

In the sixteenth century, the high heel migrated to the West from the Middle East, where it was worn by horse back riders to hold their feet in the stirrups. Louis XIV instructed his royal court to were shoes with red heels. After the French Revolution , high heels went out of style but by the nineteenth century were back for women designed by Jean-Louis Francois Pinet.

In the early twentieth century, Pietro Yantorny became the shoe maker of choice for the very rich.His craftsmanship was exquisite .

In the 1920s Perugia was the creator of the towering heel-less shoe.

The “shoe maker to the stars” Salvatore Ferragamo introduced the cork platform.

The cork platform by Salvatore Ferragamo.

In the 1950s Roger Vivier experimented with the heel and created the first stiletto heel and went to work with Christian Dior.

Flower stress buckle pumps by Roger Vivier.

Beth Levine created the stocking shoe tat adhered to foot with adhesive

In the 1960s flats were back in style but high heels were back in in the 1970s worn by men and women. In the 1980s humour was introduced to the appearance of footwear by Susan Dennis and Warren Edwards. Tokyo Kumagai hand-painted his shoes with designs inspired by Salvador Dali. Isabel Canova’s created hot-pink heels with ants made of black sequins. In the 1990s Vivienne Westwood revived platform shoes.

ALAN QUILICI

Quilici was inspired by Japanese films, cyborgs, artificial environments, and the works of Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon. He thinks of shoes as extending and redefining the body. He restricts his palette to black, white and neutral coiours.The vertical wedge is influenced by drawing ideas from dreams and reality, nature and reality.

ALBERTO GUARDIANI

Guardiani took over his father’s footwear factory and designed the “lipstick Heel”

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

McQueen was influenced by the melting polar icecaps and rising oceans . He designed the “Titanic” with a metal heel, toe and arch influenced by an erector set.

Sarah Burton has taken over Mcqueen’s label and brings fairy tale into her designs.

ANASTASIA RADEVICH

Radevich did an internship with McQueen and records her inspirations in sketch books. For the Kinetik collection Radevich took her inspiration from the Montreal Electro-Industrial Noise Festival of the same name.

KOBI LEVI

Levi has created wearable sculptures. He is fascinated with the shapes he saw in footwear.

Shoes a very fashionable fetish-”Shoes equal sex” Francesco Russo, 2014. This quote from a man that has created some of the most strikingly sexual fashion shoes of the 2010s -the cherry sandals and Chinese lacquer wedge underlines a relationship that spans for hundreds of years. Women’s shoes have become especially alluring in their design and undoubtedly associated with sex.

Messages about shoes relates to sexual identity and availability have been attached to foot was as referenced by Edouard Manet’s Olympia portrait.

Francesco Russo stated that sexuality in shoes is “more for the person watching them than the women wearing them.” Leanne Jessica a fetish blogger also explores how the heel has a ‘dangerous nature’ for example a thin spiky heel creating an image of power for the women wearing the shoe. Fashion trends have included shoes with low vamps, revealing a ‘toe cleavage’, backless shoes that reveal the heel ,peep-toe shoes. As well as the foot being displayed alluringly a high heel can the wearers posture accentuating breasts, hips and the backside.

Christian Louboutin shoes are examples of shoes that are associated with the fetish market.

From the turn of the twenty-first century heel high began to increase in reaction to power dressing and office -working famine identity of the late twentieth century.

Height, femininity and feeling special is achieved wearing high heels for many women. Marigay Mckee, fashion and beauty director at Harrods, described the twenty-first-century trends for extreme heels and paltforms as ‘empowered statement dressing’

Female empowerment and a ‘ballsier’ approach to dressing came in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with the punk movement and Vivienne Westwood who stated that “people want to be strong in a feminine way”

Westwood’s idea of femininity promoted the notion of women taking control of their self-presentation. Pornography and sex shop dressing was central to the whole punk fashion for women. Madonna, the spice girls , Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus wore fetish-like platform heels depicting women in control. The rise of the ‘ugly’ shoe underlines the difference between fashion footwear and fetish footwear. Fetish footware is for the male gaze and fashion footwear is about defining who you are.

The ballet shoe has inspired many fashion designers and psychiatrists believe the phallic symbolism plays an important role and the ballet shoe becomes the ultimate heel.The Japanese shoe designer Noritaka Tatehanahas designed for Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness.

Noritaka Tatiana heelless plateform shoe

Christian Louboutin ‘Ballerina Ultima’ shoes

As well as exploring how heels have empowered women I am also interested how we are prepared to suffer for our beauty. I can vividly remember being sixteen wearing ill-fitting shoes and ignoring the pain! The visit to the shoe shop represented a significant milestone in my life and I remember being fitted for a sensible pair of shoes for school but delighting in in picking totally inappropriate shoe with heels that push my foot forwards held by straps that rubbed!- give the girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world !

At the beginning of the twentieth century discussion took place about women’s shoes and their unhealthy effects the body. The super model Naomi Campbell fell on a Pris cat walk in 1993 which opened the debate around how design can cause humiliation. In the seventeenth century European males wore shoes with heels and decorative rosettes to draw attention to their calf area. In the fifteenth century in India men where susceptible to a fashion for very long shoes.

For women, small feet have been considered desirable and associated with femininity however the ‘ugly shoe has now become more establishede.g UGG and Birkenstock. In the late 1950s and ‘60s Brigitte Bardot introduced the ballet pump which were meant to be more comfortable but due to the flatness created many foot issues.

I have explored different design initially looking at Manolo Blahnik and exploring the different shapes and forms they take.

There is something powerful about the cultural significance of fetishism , something that was designed to root you to the ground and facilitate walking, as a means of self-elevation through tolerated agony. Yet if worn by powerful strong women they can convey many powerful messages.

Ceramic artist who make shoes appear to be far and few between but I see see some work by Kim Duk-Hee at Ceramic art London. I really like her work and would love to know more about her making process. I have tried contacting the artist but she is based in Japan and doesn’t speak English unfortunately.

I really like the work that an artist called Sandra Lane creates , she uses air dry clay to make courgette shoes ! Sandra Lane is interested in in-between feelings of ambivalence, optimism and failure and works these feelings into multiple forms. The placing of these objects, their combinations, the contrasts between materials shapes and colours are all important. Memories pop up with clarity and appear as more precise elements.

Sandra Lane also created shoes with tongues from air drying clay

Gwen Murphy is an artist who is interested in the vulnerability of humans and other beings, and in the humour and pathos that arise from this vulnerability. She sees humour and pathos not as opposites, but as complimentary modes of exploring this theme. She works with ash clay, acrylics and found objects (particularly discarded shoes) to make sculptures. She creates the paintings in acrylic, generating the images from surrealist techniques such as collage and blind contour. The sculptures and the paintings both involve a lot of sanding and layering of paint.

“Grendel,” Foot Fetish-ash clay, acrylics, women’s suede pumps, 2018.

I have explored Manolo Blahnik’s work and particularly resonate with his drawings which I have played with recreating the different shapes and forms of the shoes in clay. His shoes designs are completely impractical and are influenced by fetishism.

To explore clay and how it felt to create shoes I started by making some basic shoe to experiment with different clay and get a feel about what is possible!

I then moved on to experiment with extruding shapes and tried to recreate an abstract shoe shape but still communicating the sexy shoe that also creates pain and blisters but also empowers women.

Learning Agreement 4

Exhibitions