In My Shoes

2022

In My Shoes is a multi year exploration into the world of fashion and advertising’s portrayal of women. The ‘Vagina Slipper’ series which is featured in this exhibition is inspired by Jean Kilbourne’s documentary films Killing Us Softly, Still Killing Us Softly and Killing Us Softly 3 as well as her TEDX Talk on The Dangerous Ways Advertising Sees Women at Lafayette College.

I started the series by research styles of shoes and delving into my own closet and affection for shoes. After getting the concepts down on paper, I then constructed my ‘slippers’ in porcelain clay, starting with the vagina and building the shoe around it. Next came the designing of the shoe brand I call The Vulva. This show includes three different ‘mock’ advertisement posters along with images of different shoe styles using silkscreen printing.

Advertising both past and present show a casual attitude toward sex while marketing women as a product. The fashion industry through advertising, be it in television, print or over the internet, continues to dehumanize the female form and portrays it as an object on display. In My Shoes invites the viewer to metaphorically place themselves in the shoes of a woman, to contemplate how society views the female gender and how even today this objectification continues.

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