Slipper Ripper

Time for some more De-contruction with a mind to reassembly in new and fantastic forms.

The subject, a shoe of the femininely heeled variety. Quite the Slinky little number, this shoe had certainly seen its fair share of parties and nights out on the town.

It has to be said that the experience of dismantling this shoe was much like what I imagine an autopsy or post-mortum to be like -- predominantly sticky and foul smelling, yet strangely fascinating and insightful. Both precision cutting and brute force were required to get it into it's many constituent pieces.

Shown below are all the component parts of the Dismembered shoe. It is interesting to see how the assorted pieces of the shoe resemble the human body, remarkably so infact.

The first layer, a metallic blue fabric, was stretched over the outside of the shoe, in much the same fashion as skin. The sole of the shoe also fits into this category as the tougher skin of our own feet.

Next was a layer of tough, white-ish mesh and then a layer of sticky black elastic mesh, comparable to the fascia coating and joining the muscles in an organic body.

Next, a layer of white paper like parts and a some leather articles in roughly the same layer as the muscles.

Next was sturdy cardboard constituting the platform of the shoe this surrounded a flanged steel rod. These two components can be compared to the spinal column and the cartilage discs which cushion it, as they serve much the same function.

The hard, black plastic heel of the shoe is in its self reminiscent of the profile view of a human pelvis. It is in a comparable location too, if we take the toe as being the 'head' of the shoe's body.

The glue holding the shoe together can, with a small stretch of the imagination, be compared with blood, or what ever other sticky ichor our bodies contain.

The buckle and (purely decorative) Button can almost be looked at as jewellery worn by the shoe. The buckle is much like that which adorns a dressy, yet functional, belt and the button could be construed as an earring.

I find it fascinating that something worn on the body has much the same characteristics as the body upon which it is worn.

Come back next week to see the reincarnation of this shoe in a new form of wearable object. Beauty may not be the out-come of what has proven to be a somewhat grisly experiment, but beauty can be found in some very unlikely places.