foot fab fetish

for the past few hours i’ve been modeling a shoe and trying to get to the heart of what makes it so fascinating – this timeless object – and i decided it’s the opacity. not because it’s hard to use (although it takes practice) but because a shoe appears to be a homogenous, solid mass, or at least that’s how well it endures wear, but in reality it is the product of intense craft, much of which still cannot be done by machine. so i came upon these wonderful videos that unravel the process of shoe-making and idolize it in the process as part of these companies’ marketing. in the first, nike heralds the italian craft behind its air force 1 shoe in an unbelievably filmed video worth watching in its entirety. here, you feel just how impossible it must be to make a leather shoe, or even a sneaker, because it seems tied as much to birthright as to years of training. if only all of their manufacturing were so transparent (and unionized)! but it’s not all so:

this second video reveals how ballet shoes are made, in fast-forward, until it gets interesting when you see how a ballerina savagely modifies her shoe to make it work. this type of self-customization is a refreshing reminder that you can do something yourself, although in this case she does seem practiced. which is why i love this next video, which is also a marketing attempt, but on the opposite side of the spectrum from the first. patagonia’s do-it-yourself moccasin, made from factory scraps and assembled by the buyer, is put together in a grassy field by some hippy. cool.

so there you have it: making craft transparent can be great marketing; letting experts customize products actually improves their design; but leveling the entire relationship between shoe-maker and shoe-wearer yields the most sustainable solution of all.