By NICKY CHAMP
I don’t know about you, but whenever I buy new shoes I always think, ‘Gee, it’d be good if there was a pair of amputated legs in the box.’
Am I right?
Christian Louboutin, the shoe designer responsible for the ubiquitous red-soled heels, has released a calendar for his AW ‘14 collection with creepily dismembered legs modeling his latest shoe designs.
The campaign heavily references 1960s fashion photographer Guy Bourdin’s work. His images were the first to capture a complex dystopian fantasy – shocking, sexual, predatory, violent and sinister – and associate that moment with a fashion item like a pair of heels, clothes or makeup. The women in his images are handcuffed, tied to train tracks, dumped in garbage bins, hung, drowned and crushed by cars.
One art critic said of Bourdin’s work, “It was fashion at the brink: clothes to be raped in, shoes to be found dead in, a scarf to be strangled by.”
Unfortunately, it’s an aesthetic that is still used in fashion photography today. Seeing women in violent and ill-fated situations in advertising is something that most of us have witnessed on television, on billboards, in magazines and online. The problem now, nearly 50 years later, is that these images have lost their shock value. The shots aren’t exploring surrealist art; they’re just straight up derivative.
Style.com are calling them “just a healthy dose of Pop surrealism,” but fashion commenter, Kate Finnigan, for the Telegraph.co.uk sees it differently.
“The objectification of women in calenders has always made me feel uneasy but this is on another level. Amputated limbs in a gift box? You can artfully arrange the beautiful tissue paper as much as you like, Monsieur Louboutin, but if those legs and arms are meant to represent real human limbs then they must have been separated from the rest of their bodies by some pretty revolting act of mutilation.”
What do you think, are these images beyond creepy or do they appeal to you? Does it make you want to buy any of these shoes?
Top Comments
I would never buy anything like this. I agree a 100% with Kate Finnigan, and would add something else to the comment. Taking legs which are clearly female, and really, objectifying these legs by making them objects is making the skinny, beautiful leg part of the product that is being marketed. Its not just the shoe now, but it comes with a leg that must have belonged to a model.
I personally am a BIG LEGGED WOMAN though not obese, and I have trouble finding boots that fit my calfs! So, just by looking at the first image, it was clear. These legs do not represent me as a consumer. They are there to try to brainwash women into thinking this is BEAUTIFUL.
If we were worried that our girls are playing with anorexic dolls, now we have to worry about them seeing their moms, aunts, etc.... playing with nice shoes that come attached to model looking legs/ barbie type calfs....
I've had the opposite trouble until last year and I found a pair of lace ups, all the other boots I tried on had ridiculously large calves.Looked like I was wearing rubber boots. I commented in many a store and the reason given was due to the obesity epidemic. I searched high and low, online and B&M and went two winters without. I've got big feet 10's and large calves for my size.
Given your spelling for mum as mom, perhaps you are American and the trend for wide calfed boots hasn't happened over there. It definitely has here.
LOL, I'm all over the place. I come from Colombia and live in Canada, though I have lived in the USA too. The boot issue I mention was experienced in Colombia. Thank god we make good leather items, so if you don't mind spending a little bit more than normal, you can go get custom made leather boots (real and good leather).
But I totally understand where you are coming from. We must then really demand our fashion industries to understand that there is no norm, that all body shapes are different, and we can not be made to fit into cookie cutter molds of what the world is supposed to look like.
Advertising and marketing companies are always looking for new ways to shock and interest potential customers, this is no different - I personally find this to be incredibly artistic and somehow beautiful approach to the marketing of shoes, at least to me, these images are really not creepy in the slightest.
In fact I find it nice seeing the shoes on an actual pair of feet rather than just sitting there alone as you see in many shoe advertisements or in promotional images.