Posts tagged with "shoe" - Faerye Net

Regionalisms: flimsy footwear

2010-11-01T20:35:08+00:00

At the horrendous hour of 4:25 am on Thursday, I was trying not to fall asleep in the shower or fall behind in my travel itinerary for World Fantasy Convention. I looked down at my feet, and by some miracle managed to think the complex thought “I don’t like to shower barefoot in hotels.” This led to the even more complex question of what to do about this problem, which led to my wondering if they sell the proper footwear at the airport and in turn to my making a small resolution. No matter how sleepy I was, I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by asking after the object in my native dialect.

You see, this informal footwear, a foam sole with two plastic or cloth straps which radiate from the space between the first and second toes, has gotten me into trouble before. Growing up as I did in Oregon, we called these things “thongs”. Signs at the local Bi-Mart advertising a sale: “THONGS $1.99/PAIR”. Mom, always worrying: “Thongs are for the beach or the pool! Don’t wear them all the time, they’ll deform your toes!”

I learned that this was not the term the rest of the country used when I went to college. Yes, in the schoolyear which would see the release of the Sisqo song about that OTHER sort of “thong”, I was an intensely prim 17-year-old very fastidious about her feet, and all the Midwesterners laughed and laughed. “What? What’s wrong? It’s a thong. What do you call them?” I think my ears may have out-heated the radiator that day.

Anyhow, I managed to unearth some feeble manicure-shop freebies Thursday morning, and didn’t have to ask any airport shop clerks about “flip-flops” (as I’ve learned to call them). But I did enjoy the memory, because it triggered another one: reading Craig Lesley’s The Sky Fisherman. Craig grew up in a different part of Oregon from me and from my parents, but this novel of an Oregon boyhood was palpably in my home language, the dialect of the adults pervasively familiar. Of course, by the next time I had a chance to talk to Craig, the only example of this I could remember was that remarkable piece of footwear, the “thong”.

Stop laughing!

Comfy shoes

2009-04-05T17:49:41+00:00

I think costuming is meaningful. Maybe that sounds odd, but it’s an important part of the look of a show, the messaging of a theatre production, et cetera.

But I have this problem, a disconnect between the way I think and the way Hollywood people do. It’s encapsulated well by a recent episode of Dollhouse, where the same professional thief character (being played by two different actresses) repeats that she she has rules to “never second-guess a client, and wear comfy shoes”. They say this twice, in two pairs of identical boots, with stilettos around six inches tall.

This dredged up one of my televisual pet peeves. Women in standing, walking and running professions in ridiculously high heels. Dr. Cameron, the female doctor on House, for example, working long hours and pursuing a suicidal patient. ’Cuz, you know, I always notice the wicked heels on hospital staff.

Now, I own heels. I can even walk in them. They can be pretty and fun. A chunky heel can even offer some comfort and ease of use. But we’re not talking about chunky heels, or cowboy boots. We’re talking about spikes at four inches plus, which may perhaps be an everyday shoe for Hollywood, but probably not for a professional thief, or a junior doctor, or…a homicide detective.

Now, admittedly all I know about how female homicide detectives dress I learned from Landsman’s dress code lectures on The Wire. On that show it involved pantsuits, and, at least in Greggs’s case, a sturdy chunk heel. Other shows (and shoes) vary: since Life is set in LA, it’s a little less dressy: Reese wears a button-up shirt under a jacket, usually, and again, a sensible heel like a cowboy or chunky boot (Sarah Shahi’s a lot shorter than her co-star, so some heel is usually in evidence.) But Castle, in the two episodes I’ve watched, has made me crazy. They have a very tall, model-tall in fact, actress playing an NYPD homicide detective. And while my suspension of disbelief is bruised by noting her four different up-to-the-minute coats in one episode (two leather) and trailing pashmina scarfs to match, it’s positively shattered when she brushes her impractical bangs out of her eyes in order to yell “NYPD” and kick down a door when we clearly saw her deadly wobble-pumps in the adjacent scene. Not to mention when she kicks a knife away from a suspect with a retro round-toe number better suited to ballroom than brawl.

Seriously, Hollywood, maybe your costumers like showroom shoes, maybe your directors just want the character to look ‘pretty’ and don’t care what that means, maybe the writer who knows the character’s personality gets no input into these choices at all, maybe you all live in a Hollywood bubble where women are all size zero and wear lipstick to bed. But out here in watcherland, we would like to be able to believe in our heroines as well as our heroes. Which means we need to believe a badass cop can chase down a perp or kick down a door. And having walked a block in her shoes, I feel certain she can’t.

Breaking Footwear News!

2005-10-10T14:13:13+00:00

By Prudence Bonhomme, staff reporter

Footwear scientists have discovered an incredible concept: fabric or animal hide can be stretched from one side of the sole to the other, thus enclosing the toes and protecting them from low temperatures and precipitation. “We’re very proud,” said Dr. Wyonna Pickle, Professor of Footwear Studies at Big Important Science University. “Too long, humans have wandered the earth with only a sole attached to their feet by a few straps. This revolutionary invention, which we are calling ‘the closed toe’, insulates the toes from cold, shelters them from precipitation, and protects against stubbing. It’s a remarkable design breakthrough.”

Graduate students modeled several of the new ‘closed toe’ designs at the press conference, and it’s evident that many shapes and styles are possible. “Eet’s practical, but eet can be boatiful, also. Zee toe, she is érotique. Vee hide her, vee enhance zee mystère.” said Yvonne von Geterre, a prominent shoe designer, “I ’ope to ’ave a Toe Closed collection on zee runway by zee ’Olidays.”

“It’s wonderful to see how the fashion community is embracing the change,” said gratified scientist Dr. Pickle. “I just hope that early adoption by Paris won’t mean that closed toes are stigmatized as an expensive luxury. Everyone should be able to afford an enclosed shoe. That’s my dream.”

As we survey the streets of a temperate suburb this brisk October morning, and see the bare toes picking their way among the puddles and avoiding the slugs, Dr. Pickle’s dream seems remote indeed.