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these shoes weren't made for walking....

shown at Chelsea College of Arts as part of the Undergraduate Degree Show, June 2024

'these shoes weren't made for walking' revolves around the newest innovation in couture shoe craft, the chocolate high heel. By crafting the shoe out of chocolate instead of the usual leather and suede, it becomes something temporal; more exclusive but ultimately useless The foot's primary function of movement is no longer able to be carried out, and the fragile material slowly cracks and crumbles under the pressure of it's wearers body. Unable to walk freely, the wearer instead sits in the space, left to idle in the regret of their own indulgent purchase as they wait patiently for the shoe to melt (or for a kind passer-by to eat their foot free...)

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Accompanying the idle wearer is a series of pencil drawings expressing the wearer's girlish desires for a beautiful pair of high heels, contrasted by a hand-written diary snippet which, although matching the dream-like sentiment of the drawings, expresses their want to escape the burden of the heel and run freely through the night.​​

publication

Image of the layout of the shoe, shows a couch and framed pictures
A top hat decorated with shoes, a clock and a tiara
A chocolate shoe on a plate
A chocolate shoe on a plate, broken up as if being eaten.
A drawing of a girl sleeping next to a black cat.
A drawing of a girl free falling alongside a pair of shoes.
A drawing of someone standing in heels, atop of a layered cake tray.
A drawing of a pair of legs wearing shoes
A drawing of someone walking in a pair of breaking shoes
A broken up chocolate high heel.
A drawing, textural with rubbed out stars.
A written piece of text. it reads: I dream that I walk and walk until my feet are bursting with blisters and my knees give themselves over and I fall, fall onto the pavement outside your front door and lay like roadkill. Eventually you come out and, seeing that I can walk no longer, you bend down and scoop me up and carry me inside. I sit for the rest of my life and never have to walk again. (Break in text). I've been wearing these shoes for a while and walking and walking and the throb of my indulgence is killing me. We are reaching the point of collapse. I begin to realise you've been taking us in the wrong direction the entire time and we start to argue. Neither of us are willing to relent, and so I take off running running into the night, as far as my blistered feet will take me, my heels melt away and the gravel sinks into my toes. We never see eachother again.
A broken up chocolate high heel
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