This wintersession, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Italy for three weeks and learn the craft of making shoes. Our final was to create a prototype shoe that was inspired by our Italian travels.
After having such an amazing adventure for myself, I wanted to make my shoe about adventure. After visiting the Salvatore Ferragamo museum, I became inspired by princess storybooks like the ones on display. I decided to use Disney Princesses as my muse and put their storybooks in a different perspective. I realized that these princesses are "written in" to all of the shoes that they wear and have no choice over it. More than that, they have no control over their adventure becaues they are bound by their story. It was in this instant that I arrived at the core concept of my shoe:
What would a princess wear out of her story in her own adventure?
I decided to create a sneaker so that this princess who is going on an adventure is comfortable and not limited. The colors, embellishments, and pink glitter sole were picked because I wanted the shoe to be overly girly and like a fairytale.
Materials: Silk, canvas, blue foam, glass beads, glitter, lace
