it’s genetic!

museum of fine arts boston currently boasts a show all about shoes. i ofcourse freaked out when i found out i would be able to see it (it’s like they knew i was coming).

imagine! a whole show, about shoes! housed in the building responsible for sparking and fostering my interest in art and design (monet in the 90’s show, the chair show, drawing at the museum class over the summers, the sculpture garden, the hall of samurai armor- i can’t believe i forgot how much i love that museum!!!!)

the mfa has now validated my life by providing some insight to a interest (some might say obsession) that is often considered vapid and empty- my love of footwear. behold what makes me and all the women in my family (remember the wedding from this summer?) not a bunch of shallow freaks, but just purveyors of ancenstral priorities.

BOOT

Tatar people, 19th century

Ukraine

pieced, dyed and embroidered leather

Leather, inlaid pattern in colors, outlined with silk, no heel

For milennia, the central Asian steppes, which stretch from Eastern Europe to China, provided a home to nomadic peoples. As people traversed the plains, their cultural traditions travled with them, and a Tatar boot from the nineteenth century shares much with footwear of the Khitan people who conquered China and founded the Liao dynasty in the tenth century.

Both cultures favored boots over shoes, as they were more suited to life on horseback. But when indoors, nomads wore beautifully decorated soft shoes that could slip easily inside a leather boot.

isn’t it beautiful? would you not freak over it if you saw it in nordstroms shoe dept? i feel like i have seen it, freaked, tried it on and fallen in love. and now i know why.

foxy footwear is in my blood. this makes even more sense when you realize it’s a cross altan/ ortalan affliction. it’s not some learned form of consumerism/ adherence to the beauty myth/ molding to the unfashionable human body. my interst in a new pair of clarks, duck boots, sneaks and glitter flats is just the remaining beat of life on the steppe calling out to me. it’s ancestral. it’s in my bones- it’s in my toes!

v a l i d a t i o n