The Chron looks at a new exhibition about how footwear can reveal your cultural background
The World at Your Feet exhibition at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery as part of the cultural olympiad. Rebecca Shawcross with a Chinese bound foot shoe.
“DON’T judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.” This proverb hung in my best friend’s house when I was a child, and at the time I couldn’t quite get my head around the concept of how wearing someone’s shoes could help you understand their life or circumstances.
But a new exhibition coming to the Northampton Museum & Art Gallery will, this spring, help explain just this, when it examines shoes worn by people across the world to express their identity and cultural background.
Entitled, The World at Your Feet, it is part of Dress the World, a collaborative programme of three East Midlands’ exhibitions, which forms part of the Stories of the World project for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
We were granted a sneak peak of some of the 1200 shoes from across the globe due to go on show, before it opens on March 31.
“I think in the end we will display around 130 examples of world footwear, which doesn’t sound a lot but it is when you bring them all out together, and we have examples from about 60 countries,” said Rebecca Shawcross, shoe resources officer.
Visitors will examine these shoes through the items’ involvement in key moments in people’s lives.
“At the start of the exhibition you will be able to check in your shoes like you are going to the airport to start a journey, and your shoes will temporarily become part of the exhibition.
“We are looking at the whole life, and will move through the moments from birth, coming of age, marriage, warfare and death.
“We didn’t want to end with death, so when you retrieve your shoes at the end, you have the opportunity to reflect and look at a section on recycled shoes.”
The many aspects that influence shoe design are investigated in depth throughout the exhibition.
“At the bottom line people make shoes to protect their feet and keep them warm or cool depending on where they are.
“When you get right down to basics, hot countries have sandals and cold countries have skins, boots and shoes.
“Traditionally climate and materials heavily influenced shoe design and continues to today, but the rise of global fashion and development
of modern materials have extended these opportunities.
“But once people have the basic shoe they start thinking about branching out and thinking about what they can do to those shoes to make them a sign of status or identity.
“Religion can also come into it, like in India where the cow is considered holy they tend to wear a lot of wood.
“Then in China you have the patriarchal influence in the Chinese bound foot shoe.”
Rebecca produced a tiny intricately embroidered boot for us to examine, barely large enough for a toddler.
“The idea that women’s feet should be bound probably came from the royal daughters,” she said.
“When they were young their little toes would be broken and bent and then they had the foot bandaged and every few months they would undo it and tighten it.
“They would have to do this for almost the rest of their life and it would have caused them near constant pain.
“It was almost a sexual thing for men to unwrap them, clean them, play with them and do odd things with them.
“If you were lower down the scale you may not be able to afford to bind all of your daughters feet and you had to pick out one or two.”
Many of the items Rebecca drew from her store featured strange and striking designs... although how people managed to walk in some of them, like the six inch high Turkish Bath clog, was baffling.
“Although function is a major influence, for some cultures shoes played an important role in their society and were a visible indicator of status, often a shoe restricts movement creating a dependency on servants or shoes they did not need to do a lot of manual work,” said Rebecca.
“Shoes can say a lot about the traditions and cultures of those who wore them.”
coming of age
“I am walking down the King’s Road in London on one of my frequent visits to the capital to buy records, clothes and see bands... when I spy these red shoes in the window of Bally’s.
“I know I’ve got to have them.”
These red 1980 suede pixie boots belonging to Richard Moore, were bought when he was aged 18 and living in Kettering from Bally shoe shop, in Kings Road, London.
His story will form one of the many in this part of the exhibition, as the museum appealed to local people, to share their stories about shoes involved in their coming of age.
A panel of young curators also helped to choose shoes for this section.
“We took advice from the young curator group, people from 16 to 23,” said Rebecca.
“We will display the shoes in what appears to be a teenager’s bedroom.”
The transition from girlhood to womanhood is another important element of this section.
“Some of the shoes we have purchased are for Sweet 16 parties and Quinceanera, the celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday, which originates in Latin American traditions.
“This birthday is celebrated differently from any other as it marks the transition from childhood to young womanhood.
“During the Quinceanera ceremony ‘The Changing of the Shoe’ plays a vital role as commonly the girl’s father or brother removes her flat shoe in exchange for one with a high heel signifying the transition into adulthood.
“We are also hoping to get a debutante shoe on loan from the Royal Palaces.”
childhood
A LEOPARD print heeled court shoe was not what I expected to see in a collection of children’s footwear, but this is an example of what can currently be ordered for a zero to six-month-old baby.
The soft shoe, created by an American company called Heelarious, has been purchased for the exhibition.
“Obviously they don’t walk in them,” said Rebecca, “But it does raise questions about what is acceptable for girl babies.”
At the other end of the scale children’s shoes could be imbued with the power to offer both physical and spiritual protection to children. Including marking shoes worn by children with protective symbols.
“The Tiger Shoe in China was made for boys, the tiger was a really symbolic and would have been seen as a way to protect the baby or small child from evil spirits. Girl babies, however, had to fight off the spirits themselves.”
marriage
THESE days wedding shoe prices can be eye-wateringly high, but in many cultures confirming the union of two people has always called for special shoes.
It is a Greek tradition to write the names of the bride’s friends on the soles of her shoes or an Indian tradition to include shoes with bells so that the wife can be easily located.
The exhibition will even include the shoes of museum staff.
“We had a member of staff get married who is Sikh. They loaned us the groom’s wedding shoes. They live in Leicester and when they got married a lot of people go to India to shop for key wedding items like clothes and accessories.
“He bought his shoes over there but he didn’t really like them, in the end he actually wore shoes he bought here to the wedding.
“There’s a lot of superstition around marriage, and here, in the olden days they would tie an old boot to the back of a wedding carriage to wish the couple a prosperous and happy marriage.”
DEATH
FOOTWEAR for the dead is not something given much thought in some cultures, however in others intricate designs are created for the dead.
“There are superstitions around death. The North American Indians would make beaded moccasins, which were beaded on the sole, and thought to be worn by the dead in the afterlife.
“We also have some North American corn husk shoes which were born by the deceased and some Egyptian mummy soles.
“In this country we usually buried people in what they had or in their smartest shoes, but the Egyptians would bury them with all their bits and pieces so they could take them to the afterlife with them.”
Warfare
NORTHAMPTON’S famous Escape Boot by Haynes & Cann, made to help those parachuting in the war to evade capture when they landed, will form part of this section of the exhibition, as well as some more exotic forms of war footwear.
“One of the keynote shoes for the Warfare exhibition is the Samurai shoes which we will be getting on loan from the Nottingham Museum.
“We have the Chupplies that were made in Northampton for the West African Army, which is like a normal army boot but was made specifically for soldiers who were used to going barefoot or wearing sandals, so they had wider feet. There is also a fish skin sandal which shows how they started to make shoes from other materials when resources were in short supply.”
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