Why women love their shoes
If you think Imelda Marcos' shoe collection was wierd, this contest isn't for you.
Footprints International, a company based in Orange that sells shoes through home footprint.jpgparties, is asking women to submit 200-word essays about why they adore their shoes.
The grand prize winner gets a new pair of shoes every month for a year and a specially designed shoe gift arrangement. Runner up receives six pairs of shoes. Third place receives three pairs.
And every entrant receives a 20 percent discount off a shoe purchase from Footprints.
I'm not a shoe hound, so I didn't fully appreciate how much some women love footwear until I wrote about Margaux Jordon and her startup Footprints in 2005.
I received hundreds of calls and e-mails from women all over the country who wanted to be Footprints party reps. This went on for months.
Footprints now has independent party givers, er representatives, in 11 states.
"I really want to create some fun and excitement around this contest," Margaux says.
Stay tuned to find out if she succeeds.
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Written by Mikel on May 5th, 2008 with no comments.
"Walk This Way" to the MFA
If you're in the mood for a scavenger hunt, put on your favorite pair of pumps and make haste to the Museum of Fine Arts to experience the pure pleasure that is "Walk This Way", a retrospective look at shoes from throughout the world and ages.
Expertly curated, the exhibit is one of the most creative the museum has put together in some time. The 32 pairs of shoes (for the most part from the MFA's rarely seen collection) are scattered throughout the museum at 28 different stations, almost all of which parallel another work of art from the museum's collection.
The comparisons can be simultaneously jarring and enlightening: the Early Greek Art section of the museum now houses both Celtics player Kevin Garnett's tailor-made 2007 adidas basketball shoes and classical amphorae; a pair of highly technical 2007 cleats worn by Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka lie next to a plaque describing rituals of early Greek athletes (who, as a matter of fact, didn't wear any shoes at all).
Just inside the main entrance to the museum, a pair of fall 2006 Marc Jacobs platform wedges is juxtaposed with a pair of 17th-century Italian woman's "slap sole" shoes, a design popular in the 1660s and 1670s. The two pairs use almost the exact same design, a parallel between the past and the present made throughout the exhibit and embodying the idea that fashion is forever recycling.
The exhibit highlights historic designs from civilizations throughout the world, and places them in spots within the museum's different sections to show the connection between fashion, civilization and fine art. A pair of 19th-century French woman's silk slippers lies next to The Lincoln Children, an 1845 Susan C. Waters painting that depicts girls wearing almost exactly the same style of shoe. A pair of leather sandals from 4th- or 5th-century Nubia bear a striking resemblance to the sandals carved onto the feet of the ancient Egyptian statue next to which they are placed.
Written by Mikel on May 10th, 2008 with no comments.
Crocs recycling, donating shoes
Old Crocs are getting a second chance — and giving many needy people around the world their first pair of shoes. The maker of the ubiquitous plastic shoes is launching its SolesUnited initiative to the public, asking for donations of worn-out shoes to be recycled and turned into new ones.
The company started donating shoes a little over a year ago, when the brand's materials scientists figured out a way to recycle the plastic. But the plastic almost exclusively came from scraps created during the manufacturing process.
SolesUnited marks the opening of the program to the public with many retailers around the country accepting old shoes. It was announced on "The Celebrity Apprentice" Thursday night.
Crocs are made of a proprietary closed-cell resin that expands and contracts to mold to the wearer's foot.
"It's a great opportunity to give back," Crocs CEO Ron Snyder says. "We've been very fortunate as a company."
Fortunate is right: Crocs was a small business founded in 2002 in Niwot, Colo. Last year, it was one of the most widely traded Wall Street stocks, and it was named a top pick for this year by an analyst at PiperJaffray.
SolesUnited shoes have slight design tweaks to differentiate them from the traditional Crocs. Shoes recently sent to Malawi, for example, were without the back strap found on the original clog-style shoe.
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Crocs' distribution partner, the charitable Brother's Brother Foundation in Pittsburgh, has sent shoes around the world, including Chile, El Salvador, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. During January, it filled nine oceangoing containers, each one holding 10,000 pairs of shoes.
Written by Mikel on May 6th, 2008 with no comments.
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