Shoe Paraphernalia

[Paraphernalia] (noun) a collection of objects, especially equipment needed for or connected with a particular activity. Stuff.

All the latest news about shoe designers, shoe fashion, exhibitions, shoe photographers and every other hot, interesting bit of information to do with shoes, not only from Spain but far beyond!

Guy Bourdin

One of the most famous shoe photographers of the last century was the French artist Guy Bourdin (1928-1991).

He started working in fashion in the late fifties until the late eighties. He was under contract with the exclusive French Vogue for more then 30 years, which is one of the longest contracts in this famous fashion magazine's history.

Guy Bourdin single handedly changed the way of fashion photography and especially that of shoe photography. His revolutionary way of using composition, space and colour paired with an uncanny taste for all things glamorous, morbid and slightly sado-masochistic made him the famous photographer he came to be.

He has been an influence on many artists, he himself largely influenced by the illustrious 'Surrealists' of the Paris of the twenties and thirties. His cutting edge style quickly brought him into contact with other successful contemporaries.

In the late sixties it was Charles Jourdan, an internationally well-known Paris-based shoe designer, who commissioned him exclusively, to create all the adverts for his famous brand. Therefore creating a professional partnership that would last more then 25 years! Much talked about other ad campaigns followed. Fashion spreads for the houses of Chanel, Issey Miyake, Ungaro etc.

His only son Samuel Bourdin now guards his father's legacy and oversees the organisation of
exhibitions and publications of various books dedicated to his father's extensive body of work.
Having been such an influence on modern day artists, it's his son who is having to deal with legal matters concerning his fathers copyright that only recently resulted in filing a lawsuit against Madonna's production company, regarding her video for the song Hollywood, which was shamelessly copied from one of Guy Bourdin's fashion pictures from the seventies.

To me personally, Guy Bourdin's work embodied every girls' wet dream about glamour and shoes. Many pictures of his work ended up cut out of magazines and placed on my walls. And most importantly his work has been a mayor inspiration for the Shoe&theCity website!

Well worth checking out his page on Guy Bourdin at MySpace.com or flip through the pages of one of his books, notably EXHIBIT A: Guy Bourdin, published by Bulfinch Press.

Sex and the City

Of course this page would never be complete without at least one famous quote coming from the infamous, fabulous HBO series of the same name. My personal favourite must be the scene where Carry, the principal character, gets mugged in broad daylight, after having just stepped out of a famous shoe shop wearing her freshly purchased treasure: a new pair of Manolo Blahniks. 

She pleads with her mugger: "please, you can take anything, my Fendi Baquette bag (worth thousands of dollars, being the very hot fashion accessory at that moment), my money, but please don’t take my Manolo’s!!"

Sure enough, in the next scene he is shown walking off with a shoe box carrying the famous Blahnik brand. Can hardly think of a more elegant way of product placement!

Foot Trivia

• Portrait of Alexandra Kallos

  Did u know that your feet have 500,000 sweat glands? No wonder they… well, you know…
• In Thailand and various Arab countries, exposing the sole of your foot can be considered offensive.
• "I think the primary cause of foot odour is poor diet… High amounts of refined carbohydrates and fermented products. The second most common cause is stress”. Dr.R.Kornfeld, integrative podiatrist.
• The sole is home to the body’s thickest layers of skin and the least amount of pigment. Also it's one of only two body parts unable to grow hair. (The other? The palm!)
• “Cracked heels are the most common foot issue we see. I always recommend Diamancel NO.11 Tough Buffer, which is an investment, because it’s made of diamond dust and will last forever”. Donna Perillo, owner of Sweet Lily Nail Spa.
• “Shrimping” is slang for toe sucking.
• You should never have your toenail longer then the edge of your toe, according to a leading manicurist.
• The ideal length of a bound foot was three inches. When in 1911, the custom was ended, ”few realised that the pain of release would match what had been endured when the growing feet were first bound”. The Chinese Century, History of the Last Hundred Years.
• To get rid of yellow nails (from red polish), make a paste of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, leave on a few minutes, then scrub and rinse off. – D. Hardwick of BuffSpa.
• Since your feet swell throughout the course of the day, never shop for shoes in the morning!
• A number of illnesses including diabetes, arthritis and circulatory problems, can make their first appearance on the feet.

Famous Foot Fetishists

Charles Baudelaire,
Giacomo Casanova,
F.Scott Fitzgerald,
J.W von Goethe
and King Ludwig I of Bavaria…