Bluepanelshoes | Marloes ten Bhömer
Nothing is conventional anymore – the way we build, the materials we use, the shapes we create, everything strives to escape from the traditional matrix and become an entirely new item. Dutch shoe designer Marloes ten Bhömer has applied this contemporary paradigm towards shoe design, with her Bluepanelshoe, after spending a fellowship at the Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University. By replacing the conventional high heel with a sloping panel of stainless steel place on one of the sides and combining it with a molded piece of leather, the resulting shoe is actually more fitted to the human foot than a traditional piece of footwear. Studying both anatomical and movement studies as well as the means in which we usually perceive and build high heels, the designer came up with 17 various utopian types of high heels, each created as a physical prototype of foot-to-ground contact points – or “constellations”, as the designer names them. The Bluepanelshoe bases its design on this specific movement data and focuses on the manner in which high heels hit the lateral part of the foot in order to push the one moving forward. “The resulting heel design derived from these parameters would make the foot prone to eversion and inversion. In order to negate this motion, a ring-shaped constellation of contact is placed around the foot. This new set of parameters, which shirk fashion trends, allows for new shoe typologies which defy cultural stigmas that too often lead to the stereotyping of women.” Aiming to set apart women from obsolete, clichéd roles, Ten Bhömer has stated that “also exposing and questioning the role high heels play in the cultural construction of female identity” is vital in order to change the available contemporary footwear. While the shoes were created for the London Design Museum’s Life On Foot exhibition, they will also be exhibited in the Coded Couture touring exposition at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, from February the 12th 2016 to April the 30th.
