Surreal Shoes

Exhausted after an intense but thoroughly satisfying weekend at Drexel’s Fashion in Fiction conference, I’m all about pretty pictures today. In one of my recent perusals of the interwebs, I discovered the Virtual Shoe Museum. Though it’s not my favorite browser interface, I enjoyed how many (if not most) of the shoes in this catalog are distinctly unwearable– either by bulkiness, lack of foot protection, impractical materials, or structure so severe that walking would be impossible, indicating that the line between fashion and sculpture is a nebulous one.

I’m tempted to delve into the intersection of surrealism and fashion, Max Ernst’s mechanistic fantasies of mannequins, etc… but I’ll save that for another day. Instead, I’ll simply whet your appetite with some of my favorite surreal shoes from the VSM’s online collection, with the reminder that humor is intrinsic to Surrealism:

Svenja Ritter pie shoes:

Invisible Shoe, Andreia Chaves

Chewing gum shoe, Kobi Levi

Toeshoe gold, Bart Persoons

Ice cream shoe, Rhonda Voo

Banana, Kobi Levi

High Tide Heels pro, Paul Schietekat

Stilts, Eelko Moorer

Nailed up. 2004, Alexander Fielden

I encourage you to visit the furniture shoe section, as well. Enjoy!