heels step into a higher cycle

There was something about this on Salon a couple of days ago: somebody who goes by the name of giddyspinster makes flower pots out of stripper heels, and sells them on her etsy page:
































After having their top removed, the shoes are drilled for drainage and sanded. Giddyspinster's plants of choice are cacti and succulents, which, we must understand, are her best metaphor for the 'the increasingly artificial nature of American femininity, and the impossible images that women face in our society. It's a prickly, spiky, sticky situation...'.

And if books on feminism overflow your library, why not stack them neatly in this book holder made of upcycled stilettos?














For a moment there, I thought these objects claim to be art. If they did, I'd write a longer paragraph saying that it's cliche and I'd also insert that video from Ghost World about the tampon in a cup pretending to be an art object. I don't quite follow the logic of this metaphor, and I think that heels can't help being cliches even when they're mocked. At the same time, I like the idea of making them into something else. What rubs me the wrong way about giddyspinster's approach is that it perpetuates the shoe fetishism instead of dismantling it. Either that, or the fact that in my eyes these shoes are kitschy beyond salvation through upcycling.

hues

My friend F. is invited to a wedding with the following dress-code: everyone must wear one color only, and it can't be black nor white (the creatively challenged are threatened with a punishment). Ton-sur-ton outfits are actually more interesting than they sound. Coincidentally, the style site has a selection on the topic (apparently this is a trend), of which I made a selection (ton-sur-ton? selection-of-selection? get it?):







These were: TSE, Richard Nicoll, Oscar de la Renta, Margiela, and Charles Anastase. The next one's Bottega Veneta, and the difference in the hues makes its placement in this selection disputable, but who wants to be pedantic. As it happens, my friend F. has a beautiful pair of pink trousers which she could build on to replicate this outfit, but she's partial to yellow these days. So, Bottega Veneta:



The next two are from Vivienne Westwood's Fall 2010 collections. This dress looks like it's made from a huge supermarket plastic bag. The folds are both sculptural and light:



And this one I selected because I was surprised how well wine and yellow go together, but ironically I'm placing it here: if we make abstraction of that little yellow cardigan, we see an interesting hue-on-hue outfit.