Weird and Wacky Andre Perugia – Strange shoes

Andre Perugia 1920s shoes

We’ve not had any strange shoes for quite a while – so here’s  some new ones I found recently.  Incidently I had half an inch taken off some heels of mine recently.  It may be only half an inch, but they difference this makes to actually being able to walk in these shoes is amazing:)

Andre Perugia homage to Picasso sandel

French shoe designer Andre Perugia  (1893 -1977) is a designer I’ve only just discovered and already I am very much intrigued by these designs.  He worked with many top designers including Hubert De Givenchy.  The shoe above is called ‘Homage to Picasso’, and I think I can see the artist’s  iconic Dove of peace’s influence at work here.

picasso dove of peace

This heelless shoe is not for those who are scared of heights!  If you want to experience what it’s like to be a ballerina and walk on points – then these must have been ideal!

andre perugia heeless shoe

There’s something fishy about these shoes 😉  What a strange subject matter – even though the leather fish is beautifully designed and worked.  There are lots more of this designers quirky shoe styles  here

Andre Perugia fish

Biography and wonderful rare images here

Beautiful bygone fashion site here (1920s she image)

Picasso shoe from here

Fish shoe image here

Heeless shoe image from here

Weird and wacky design: Walk a mile in these shoes?

Yes Sir I could boogie (but not for all night long)

I’ve not put any ‘Weird and Wacky designs’ on here for a while – so I shall address that now.  I love strange shoes, though it takes me all my time to wear high heels these days (though I just will not be told and do try to persevere).  I rather like these shoes. I like the shape of them, and I think that they would probably be comfortable – the hydraulics of them giving at least a bit of support. (link to an interesting shoe blog which featured them)

heavy boots of lead - fills her victims full of dread

Now I really like these metal shoes!  They would look fantastic – but I should think that they would be pretty uncomfortable to wear.  They are the sort of thing the H.R. Giger would design (must do a post on that artist).

alien surrealist work of H R Giger

  He did the visual effects on the film Alien for which he won an Academy Award.  Ideal for a female alien perhaps?  Do they have real feet?  If so – how many?

walk this way - if you dare

These of course are by the late Alexander McQueen – a tragic loss to the fashion world.  His designs were sometimes  outrageous  and very impractical – but what an imagination!  I love the twisty meanderings of these shoes.  they remind me of the nursery rhyme:-

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse

And they all lived together in a crooked little house.

I don’t think you would be walking very far at all in the last shoes.  the nursery rhyme, by the way has its foundation in Kings Charles 1st – the crooked man being the Scottish General Alexander Leslie.

the crooked man

Metal shoe link here

H R Giger website here

McQueen shoe from this blog

Nursery rhymes here

Weird and Whacky Designs: Walk a Mile in my Shoes (if you dare)

More strange and unexepected  shoes!  How do they keep on coming up with them?

alexander mcqueen no less! but in this case more idefinitely more

They get weirder and whackier….

 

the question must surely be WHY: but what is the answer?

What’s puzzling me about the above shoes is do your toes fit into the shoe toes or do they stop short?  So, do you have to get a size bigger than your actual feet?

 

hot wheels shoes

These shoes are TOO cute for words!  I would have screamed for these as a child….and I still wouldn’t mind a pair!

 

For guaranteed weird shoe designs look HERE you won’t believe it!

If you liked this post – there’s more where this came from!  Go to my home page and look in my Categories, click on ‘WEIRD AND WHACKY DESIGN’

Honestly! Really Really!

Here is a list of links to post I have made so far concerning artist’s birthday.  I have tried to make it a rule that I actually LIKE the artists’ work!   Some artists I do like, I have not included so far, as their birthdays have clashed with something else I was writing about. Some birthdays I have only found out about when it was too late to include them , I mean to rectify this at a later date.

Rubens

Gauguin

Dali

Leonardo da Vinci

Hart Benton

Turner

Van Gogh

Morris

Pollock

Chagall

Kahlo

Modigliani

Degas

Weird and Whacky Design: Hand in Glove?

glove-shoes

What about these for a whacky design then…They’re called ‘Glove shoes’, for obvious reasons.  I’m quite taken with them actually!

If you liked this post – there’s more where this came from!  Go to my home page and look in my Categories, click on ‘WEIRD AND WHACKY DESIGN’

Still Tottering on the Wild Side

Just a short post today.  This one goes with the one I did yesterday The Patter of Tiny Pattens Walk on the Wild Side

Whilst looking for unusual shoes, I was very much taken with these!  fabulous handpainted shoes!

 

Salvador_Dali_shoes_by_vcallanta these are handpainted!

A rather unusual  pair of surreal  heeled elevators are these.  Those heels are mind boggling!  I wonder what they’re like to walk in?  Or perhaps they are more for posing in!  Great fun anyway!

 

sergio-rossi-redgold-shoes

Well I better pull my socks up or I’ll be late for work…down to reality eh!

The Patter of Tiny Feet in Pattens Take a Walk on the Wild Side

platform_shoes 'I'm on top of the world Ma!'

What are pattens?  And why aren’t they around now?  Well I suppose they are still around but in a different incarnation.  They’re called platforms!  pattens have a long history (see here)

Georgian pattens

Pattens were made of wood or leather and sometimes very high 8 to 10 inches.  The idea was to elevate the dainty or flimsily made shoe or slipper from the wet, muddy or damp ground. Rather like walking on stilts really.  This site is very informative about shoes including pattens.

 

14th 15th century german pattens

Some of these pattens had a metal ring at  the bottom, this raised them from the ground.  They must have been very difficult to balance on and it makes you wonder if people fell off them into the mud thereby defeating the object lol!

zebedee had the same idea, but couldn't quite get the hang of it

 

chopines a walk on the wild side

Another type of  pattens were  Chopines, made for the wealthy in Renaissance Italy, though they date to earlier and are by no means exclusive to Italy.   These were very elaborate contraptions and  highly fashionable.

Pattens early 19th cen wood and metal

The Bronte’s Aunt Branwell  wore pattens.  Coming from the warm climate of Penzance Cornwall, she hated the dark rainy windy climate of Haworth Yorkshire.  She never ever got used to it.  It was not considered  polite to wear pattens indoors so Aunt Branwell was considered eccentric for doing so: –

“

…she disliked many of the customs of the place, and particularly dreaded the cold damp arising from the flag floors in the passages and parlours of Haworth Parsonage. The stairs, too, I believe, are made of stone; and no wonder, when stone quarries are near, and trees are far to seek. I have heard that Miss Branwell always went about the house in pattens, clicking up and down the stairs, from her dread of catching cold.’ (From ‘The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell) .

patten find top

 This patten comes from a metal detecting site.  There is a very interesting story about how they were found!

patten fine bottom

 I came across this interesting fashion blog!

              A nice little Fashion Blog

Altered art book: page 11 Walk a life in my shoes

page-11-walking through childhood

The words I picked out were; –

‘They walked through their childhood’

The idea of walking through childhood is of course associated with memories: nostalgia for what has been.  My immediate thought was childhood toys, until the shoes hit me that is.  How many pairs of shoes do we go through in life I wonder?  What about past lives? all those shoes!  One CANNOT have enough shoes…… or enough lives?

page-11-shoes detail

I scribbled these hastily on a prepared white background.  The idea of walking in different shoes puts me in mind of Reincarnation, doing unto others as they would do to us, role reversal and of course following in our Forefathers footsteps.  Is there a purpose? is there a pattern? or is life just a repetition of what has gone before? (in our personal sphere)

I have quite a few artists in mind, associated with this page, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Media used; ink,wax crayon, watercolour paint, print, mock snakeskin paper