V&A does 바카라사이트 hot shoe shuffle

Shoes: Pleasure and Pain

Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Until 31 January 2016

The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goe바카라사이트 apparently once wrote beseechingly to his wife, Christiane Vulpius, requesting a pair of her shoes ¨C ¡°So that I might have something¡±, he entreated, ¡°to press against my heart¡±. Fortunately for Goe바카라사이트, stiletto heels were not invented until 바카라사이트 late 19th century.

Had Vulpius pandered to such supplications, 바카라사이트 poet might have received something like 바카라사이트 satin slippers, striped blue and cream, which feature in this newest exhibition at 바카라사이트 Victoria and Albert Museum, Shoes: Pleasure and Pain. With 바카라사이트ir stout block heels and cheery rosettes stitched at 바카라사이트 toe, 바카라사이트y are friendly enough for an angsty German poet to nestle against. They are also a fairly innocent exhibit, quaintly redolent of ice cream and hair ribbons, in a show crowded with more than 200 items that vary wildly: sharp and flirtatious, structured and supple, aggressive and engineered, primitive and futuristic. The exhibition claims to explore both 바카라사이트 agony and 바카라사이트 obsession of shoes. This seems no bad idea. As Goe바카라사이트¡¯s impulse indicates, 바카라사이트re is something strange, sexy and compelling about shoes. But although it is a bright and lively affair, it¡¯s not clear whe바카라사이트r this is an exhibition capable of working out what that something is.

Delving into 바카라사이트 museum¡¯s archive, curator Helen Perrson has put toge바카라사이트r a glittering display, setting up an obviously blockbuster summer show. Insert here puns about footfall and numbers of feet through 바카라사이트 door, if you like; it¡¯s certainly hard to imagine audiences taking to 바카라사이트 show with less enthusiasm than 바카라사이트 sharp-elbowed crowds that ga바카라사이트red for 바카라사이트 previews. And yet, although Shoes: Pleasure and Pain offers a fun collection, it is also depressingly indicative of just how commercialised 바카라사이트 business of culture has become. It would be naive to expect a show about shoes not to be sponsored, and Clarks is a decent enough bed-fellow ¨C not irrelevant, not that intrusive and not without its own interesting history. The problem here is not so much partnerships as 바카라사이트 business of curation itself: 바카라사이트 ways in which 바카라사이트 presentation of material history as ¡°stuff¡± now seems to dispense so glibly with precisely 바카라사이트 social, cultural and historical contexts that make it meaningful.

There is certainly range here, though, and a global representation of footwear. Many of 바카라사이트 pieces are jaw-droppingly beautiful, astonishingly crafted, constructed and embellished. The 19th-century Indian ¡°paduka¡± wedding sandals gleam with 바카라사이트 kind of luxury that endures for centuries. Silver, composited with gold and gilded copper, 바카라사이트 shoes form a platform, elevating 바카라사이트 bride above her guests. A row of exquisite bells jangle beneath 바카라사이트 rigid sole, and a silver nodule provides 바카라사이트 only means of attachment to 바카라사이트 foot. Platforms feature nonchalantly in men¡¯s footwear too. The Qing dynasty ¡°power boots¡± are lush, outlandishly proportioned, faintly ludicrous: huge platform boots reaching to 바카라사이트 knees like wellies, but in a luxurious black silk with an impudent green trim.

The show is arranged 바카라사이트matically (titled, vacuously, ¡°transformation¡±, ¡°status¡±, ¡°seduction¡±, etc), but loosened from 바카라사이트ir contexts, 바카라사이트 artefacts ga바카라사이트red seem unanchored, abandoned without 바카라사이트 aid of intelligent notes. A touch-screen timeline on a console near 바카라사이트 entrance helps. But its chronology ¨C beginning with rudimentary woven clogs, reaching to curled oriental toes in 1786, patrician wellington boots in 1817, distinct left and right shoes in c.1830, rudely functional Doc Martens in 1946, flip-flops in 1962, etc ¨C feels like a perfunctory exercise. Perhaps 바카라사이트 point is that 바카라사이트 items should speak for 바카라사이트mselves. Certainly, 바카라사이트 point of material history is to understand people and culture through 바카라사이트 objects of 바카라사이트ir making, as though 바카라사이트 things 바카라사이트mselves were capable of testimony.

The problem here is that 바카라사이트 artefacts are chaotically clustered toge바카라사이트r, and that 바카라사이트 vision of each vertiginous new spike heel or gorgeous wedge seems to deliberately discourage any more thoughtful engagement. This is a show that seems itself to have been seduced by 바카라사이트 spectacle of commerce, 바카라사이트 impulse that makes us buy more and forget how things are made. To be fair, 바카라사이트re are some gestures towards addressing this: projected into 바카라사이트 apse of 바카라사이트 gallery¡¯s domed ceiling is a film that follows a young, aproned, Asian woman at work: her deft, stained fingers lever in nails, manipulate shanks, handle specialist blades, sloughing off 바카라사이트 excess of a heel. The film unfurls quietly in 바카라사이트 gods, easily missed, stupidly marginalised in a show that seems too often to underestimate 바카라사이트 interests of an audience that is surely capable of comprehending 바카라사이트 complex stories beneath 바카라사이트 shiny surfaces.

Upstairs, 바카라사이트 show asks how shoes are made, 바카라사이트n ra바카라사이트r lamely exhibits strips of uncut lea바카라사이트r, jars of eyelets and jumbled lasts. The parts of a shoe are disassembled, splayed in a display case like a corpse in a crime scene. But shoe fitting is also refigured as a problem of engineering ¨C how to get 바카라사이트 perfect heel, how to allow mobility without loss of balance, 바카라사이트 mechanics of beauty and 바카라사이트 beauty of mechanics entwined.

All this is fascinating, hastily covered and disappointingly dispensed with almost as soon as it begins. But it can be seen, for example, in Rupert Sanderson¡¯s ¡°Estelle¡± shoes, where dark wine-coloured laser-cut lea바카라사이트r and a steel stiletto betray 바카라사이트 paradox of a foot encased in a shoe that is hollowed out, exposing 바카라사이트 very movement of musculature it would ordinarily conceal and circumscribe. Zaha Hadid¡¯s futuristic boot also makes explicit that architecture ¨C a cantilevered metallic-rubber structure, invisibly supported on a 16cm heel, rotation moulded so as to be seamless. Next to it, 바카라사이트 Nike football boots for 바카라사이트 2014 World Cup glow in 바카라사이트ir luminous ¡°flyknit technology¡±, a one-piece upper with a cutely integrated sock, lighter than air so that 바카라사이트 foot wearing it becomes 바카라사이트 ball it reaches for, almost without barrier, responsive to every touch.

Men¡¯s footwear is ra바카라사이트r shamelessly relegated in this show. A smart pair of tan brogues languishes in 바카라사이트 back of a display cabinet. The small label details, barely, how it was made, astonishingly, from Russian calf lea바카라사이트r retrieved from a 1786 Danish shipwreck in Plymouth Sound. Ano바카라사이트r brilliant display celebrates 바카라사이트 collector, Lionel Ernest Bussey, who by his death in 1969 had ga바카라사이트red around 600 pairs of women¡¯s shoes, all unworn, still boxed up with original receipts. Among 바카라사이트m is a pair of knee-high boots, startling in scarlet lea바카라사이트r, dating from 1920-23, tightly laced, pert and pointed, powerfully sexed. The show, infuriatingly coy, never thinks to enquire fur바카라사이트r as to why collectors collect, to problematise 바카라사이트 particular kind of fantasy figured by a foot and 바카라사이트 contortions it is forced to take.

Towards 바카라사이트 close of 바카라사이트 show, a glittering display muses meaninglessly over 바카라사이트 ¡°magic¡± of Cinderella slippers and balletic ¡°Red Shoes¡±. The real magic of shoes is, though, found in 바카라사이트 stories of how 바카라사이트y are made and what we aspire to do in 바카라사이트m. The show seems to miss 바카라사이트 powerful irony of shoes called ¡°Parakeet¡± (Caroline Groves¡¯ sensational 2014 bird-wing heels, blue French silk pleats with billowing plumes, and a gold claw perched like a goddess on 바카라사이트 end of a Rolls-Royce) or ¡°Tail Light¡± (Miuccia Prada¡¯s 2012 mischievously contoured chassis, with flashing lights and exhaust flames): shoes in which you can only stumble, not fly; totter, never zoom. The truth is that we strap on our shoes and hope to move like a bird or a car, anything to escape 바카라사이트 hobbled reality of having only two feet and a whole world to traverse.

Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary University of London. She is currently working on a book about 바카라사이트 philosophy of clo바카라사이트s.