The opposite of seduction
I agree with Manolo. Crocs are certainly the opposite of seduction.
Visually, they present an interesting juxtaposition: They share some elements of their proper function ((Preston, B. (2000) The function on things. A philosophical perspective on material culture. In Graves-Brown, P. ed. Matter, materiality and modern culture. London: Routledge)) and the the colour. Other than that, the perception, for a viewer (or owner) looking for a seductive experience, couldn’t be different.
The seductive experience is not a question of comfort, either, but of the experience of wearing these shoes, mainly for girls Äìthis is a gender specific issue, I am sureÄì. What drives this experience is the appearance, the way the shoes look and what that may mean. Crocs encase whereas Blahnik reveals the foot; Crocs protect feet whereas Blahnik hugs them with the straps; Crocs have holes for ventilation (implying smelly, sweaty feet?) whereas Blahnik has bows; Crocs widen the feet whereas Blahnik lenghens the legs, hinting at, enhancing other parts of femenine anatomy and provoking a specific way of walking.
I’d like to do an experiment. I’d loke to wear each of these of a different foot and hop from one to the other… I wonder what kinds of psychological impact may this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde study bring…
3 thoughts on “The opposite of seduction”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I am no expert on footwear but this seems a very narrow semiotic reading, selecting in turn from a rather rarified discourse. On the other hand [foot?], I love the idea of your Jekyll/Hyde experiment. Plus, my own prejudices are certainly against the Crocs – but that’s different…
Your comments are very helpful! What are you referring to with “rarified discourse”?
This post (like a lot of this blog, actually) was not really intended to be a semiotic or any other kind of reading, rather a note, a thought, for me to remember what the opposite of seduction may look like. Opposition may help me to define this flimsy, cunning phenomenon. I do most of the considered readings on the papers I write, on my PhD submissions and on the written work to my supervisors, most of which is also accessible on the website. The blog is my sketchbook.
If the whole seduction thing with shoes refers to how we feel when we wear them, I thought I could take that a little further with the experiment. It came to me during a shopping spree, when I was trying a pair of gorgeous stilletos on my left foot, still wearing my tatty Birkenstocks on the right one. I kept switching sides on the mirror and thinking: “now I feel gorgeous, now I don’t”.
” I kept switching sides on the mirror and thinking: Ïnow I feel gorgeous, now I donÌtÓ.”
It might be fun to keep doing that but wrong-foot your valorisation until you feel permanently gorgeous. And then, with one bound you are free…