600 SHOES on EXHIBIT
Yakima shoe show strolls through history
About 600 pairs of high heels from David Childs' collection will be on display at the Yakima Valley Museum for the rest of this year after an opening reception Friday.
By Pat Muir
Yakima Herald-Republic
David Childs saw something in the high heels stashed in his mother's closet, something most people would miss.
He saw how a shoe could transcend function, transcend fashion itself, into the realm of art. He saw the curve of the heel, and, where you or I might have seen the potential for bunions, he saw sculpture.
"It's just a fascination," Childs said, standing among hundreds of shoe boxes. "I can't really explain it any other way. They're pieces of art."
About 600 pairs of high heels from his collection will be on display at the Yakima Valley Museum for the rest of this year after an opening reception Friday. Childs has more than twice that number of shoes in his collection, an obsessive pursuit begun in 1968 and abetted by decades as a Nordstrom salesman that has only deepened his appreciation of fine women's footwear.
"I have paid $4 [hundred], $5 [hundred], $600, several times for something I thought I really should have," he says.
While the aesthetic appeal of high heels remains his primary motivation, Childs has found that, like any artistic medium, there are fascinating sociocultural aspects to footwear. The history of American society can, in some ways, be traced through his collection. The earliest pieces on display at the museum date to before World War I; they're high button boots, echoing the Victorian modesty of the late 19th century. To contrast those with high heels from the Roaring '20s is to acknowledge the broad cultural changes that took place over a decade's time.
"This was the first time feet and legs really showed," Childs says, picking up a pair of ornate Art Deco-influenced heels dating to the Jazz Age. "Shoes were important. Manufacturers went wild with color and new innovations."
High heels from the 1930s reflect the influence of Hollywood's early Golden Age. Heels from the 1940s show innovation, specifically the use of reptile skins and fabric as a replacement for war-rationed leather. The postwar high heels reflect postwar American society's move from rural to suburban, with open-toed shoes and spiked heels.
"Until the '60s, many women dressed like that just to go shopping at the grocery store," Childs says.
The '60s, of course, brought liberation — political, sexual, and artistic — all of which is reflected in its decadent high heels. And there was, blessedly to Childs' mind, still a bit of classic glamour to the Kennedy era. By the '70s, that love-generation excess got out of control in the footwear arena just like it did everywhere else.
"Shoes got real chunky in the '70s," Childs says. "The heels came down. I call it the chunky, ugly era."
The '80s marked a return to styles from the '50s, mirroring the nostalgia movement that brought us "Happy Days" and all those '50s-themed diners.
"Most shoe designers will tell you there's only so many things you can do with shoes, and then they repeat," Childs says.
In recent years, high-heel fashion has splintered and fragmented like so many other forms of pop culture. There is no one style that defines this era, and Childs collection acknowledges that.
His newer shoes are all different colors, shapes and materials. That diversity, says the museum's curator of exhibitions, Andy Granitto, is indicative of yet another societal trend, the modern willingness to stand out. It's not such a negative to be seen as eccentric or outside the norm anymore.
"For people who buy that shoe," he says pointing to a flamboyantly bejeweled heel, "it's important that it makes a statement. It defines them as a person."
And this is a guy, Granitto, who initially wasn't crazy about the idea of a high-heels exhibit. John Baule, the museum's director, was wary at first, too, Granitto says. But that changed after they went to see Childs' collection.
"John comes back and says, 'There's this guy with this collection of shoes,' and I was skeptical," Granitto says. "But I went and saw them and was just immediately like, 'This is going to be an incredible exhibit.' "
Like Childs himself, Granitto and Baule started to see something in those high heels. They saw history and they saw culture. And they saw art.
"At some basic level, no matter how people look at it, it's a side of culture, of humanity, of embellishment, of turning things into something," Granitto says. "They're works of art."
MY THOUGHTS
yakima valley is in central washington! so much for seeing the exhibit. i was just curious.
Yakima shoe show strolls through history
About 600 pairs of high heels from David Childs' collection will be on display at the Yakima Valley Museum for the rest of this year after an opening reception Friday.
By Pat Muir
Yakima Herald-Republic
David Childs saw something in the high heels stashed in his mother's closet, something most people would miss.
He saw how a shoe could transcend function, transcend fashion itself, into the realm of art. He saw the curve of the heel, and, where you or I might have seen the potential for bunions, he saw sculpture.
"It's just a fascination," Childs said, standing among hundreds of shoe boxes. "I can't really explain it any other way. They're pieces of art."
About 600 pairs of high heels from his collection will be on display at the Yakima Valley Museum for the rest of this year after an opening reception Friday. Childs has more than twice that number of shoes in his collection, an obsessive pursuit begun in 1968 and abetted by decades as a Nordstrom salesman that has only deepened his appreciation of fine women's footwear.
"I have paid $4 [hundred], $5 [hundred], $600, several times for something I thought I really should have," he says.
While the aesthetic appeal of high heels remains his primary motivation, Childs has found that, like any artistic medium, there are fascinating sociocultural aspects to footwear. The history of American society can, in some ways, be traced through his collection. The earliest pieces on display at the museum date to before World War I; they're high button boots, echoing the Victorian modesty of the late 19th century. To contrast those with high heels from the Roaring '20s is to acknowledge the broad cultural changes that took place over a decade's time.
"This was the first time feet and legs really showed," Childs says, picking up a pair of ornate Art Deco-influenced heels dating to the Jazz Age. "Shoes were important. Manufacturers went wild with color and new innovations."
High heels from the 1930s reflect the influence of Hollywood's early Golden Age. Heels from the 1940s show innovation, specifically the use of reptile skins and fabric as a replacement for war-rationed leather. The postwar high heels reflect postwar American society's move from rural to suburban, with open-toed shoes and spiked heels.
"Until the '60s, many women dressed like that just to go shopping at the grocery store," Childs says.
The '60s, of course, brought liberation — political, sexual, and artistic — all of which is reflected in its decadent high heels. And there was, blessedly to Childs' mind, still a bit of classic glamour to the Kennedy era. By the '70s, that love-generation excess got out of control in the footwear arena just like it did everywhere else.
"Shoes got real chunky in the '70s," Childs says. "The heels came down. I call it the chunky, ugly era."
The '80s marked a return to styles from the '50s, mirroring the nostalgia movement that brought us "Happy Days" and all those '50s-themed diners.
"Most shoe designers will tell you there's only so many things you can do with shoes, and then they repeat," Childs says.
In recent years, high-heel fashion has splintered and fragmented like so many other forms of pop culture. There is no one style that defines this era, and Childs collection acknowledges that.
His newer shoes are all different colors, shapes and materials. That diversity, says the museum's curator of exhibitions, Andy Granitto, is indicative of yet another societal trend, the modern willingness to stand out. It's not such a negative to be seen as eccentric or outside the norm anymore.
"For people who buy that shoe," he says pointing to a flamboyantly bejeweled heel, "it's important that it makes a statement. It defines them as a person."
And this is a guy, Granitto, who initially wasn't crazy about the idea of a high-heels exhibit. John Baule, the museum's director, was wary at first, too, Granitto says. But that changed after they went to see Childs' collection.
"John comes back and says, 'There's this guy with this collection of shoes,' and I was skeptical," Granitto says. "But I went and saw them and was just immediately like, 'This is going to be an incredible exhibit.' "
Like Childs himself, Granitto and Baule started to see something in those high heels. They saw history and they saw culture. And they saw art.
"At some basic level, no matter how people look at it, it's a side of culture, of humanity, of embellishment, of turning things into something," Granitto says. "They're works of art."
MY THOUGHTS
yakima valley is in central washington! so much for seeing the exhibit. i was just curious.
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