Shoes

Do our shoes form our identity?

Or is the way we dress our feet merely an expression of the different facets of who we are?

Though unsure of the directionality,

I am convinced of a correlation between Shoe and Personality.

Afterall, I didn’t pay £90 for leather that’s been sewn hard together with yellow stitching.

No!  I paid for confidence in a crowded room.

The swag that comes from knowing that if you trod on my toes I wouldn’t feel it

But if I trod on yours, you would.

And think of the way people walk in wellies!

A slight kick with each step due to the looseness of the plastic boot

A motion with unconscious attitude

Waterproof to the world outside

The movement says, “Fuck you, rain!  I’m still dry!”

Women’s shoes are amazing, aren’t they?

Leopard print teetering on pin prick heels

click clack down the hall to alert the world to her presence

or quiet pumps stealthy velvet; suade to stay dry; sequins; delicate patterns;

and little girl shiny school shoes of excitable naivety.

And these come on top of, not instead of, the mixed gender range of trainers and converses and Vans and occasionally cowboy boots.

But let me ask you a question:

If men’s shoes allowed them to sometimes need to lean on another –

If men’s shoes meant sometimes they had to walk slowly with small steps and were unable to run –

If sometimes they were allowed to need to stay out of the rain –

If they could more often express enjoyment of simple pleasures by reflecting light off sparkling toes –

Would they no longer make up 75% of suicides and 95% of prisoners?

Imagine it, being constrained in brown leather day after day,

From the age of dot being trained to

Walk straight like a solder,

Back straight, legs straight, think straight, love straight,

Where the only alternatives

Are bold, ball – bouncing bright Nike airflow trainers

Or steel-toe caps for protection against falling scaffolding and emotions

Imagine a world where the privilege and delight of delicacy

is taken away

and re-branded as shame

Solving the crisis of masculinity will take a good deal of detection.

Or maybe we just need to broaden the men’s footwear selection?