Every Shoe Tells a Story
This week the National Geographic magazine published a story by Cathy Newman: "Every Shoe Tells a Story". The article spans the most extreme luxury Manolo Blahnik heels to the most primitive fiber-woven sandals found in Oregon from 8500BC.
(It was nice to see that Oregon was always a mecca for shoe-making -- they found hundreds of pairs stacked in the caves high above Fort Rock :-)) The photo to the left is from the National Geographic article, taken by Mitchell Feinberg.
Shoes are such an important part of our culture that there are acutally shoe historians who track their evolution along with other advances in human culture. Newman interviewed several in her article and and concludes: "Every shoe tells a story. Shoes speak of status, gender (usually), ethnicity, religion, profession and politics."
...and shoes are expressions of individuality. Even in the fiber sandals painstakingly woven tens of thousands of years ago, no two are alike. Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff is quoted in the article saying "The wearers of these shoes lived a subsistence exitence. They didn't need to make each pair different. But its human nature to make things visually appealing, to make one pair a little more complex than others to set it apart from someone else's." Newman concludes with saying "The desire to wear something different, distinctive, and decorative - that is to say, the instinct for fashion-- has been around for a very long time.
Reading this article made me smile inside-- I'm glad that Soft Star Shoes still offers our customers the ability to design your own shoe and express their unique personality. I'm humbled knowing that some of the oldest shoes known to mankind were stockpiled a couple of hours from our workshop.... and I love knowing that the work we do everyday can live on to tell stories.
Soft Star Shoes is a family friendly company located in Corvallis, Oregon. Viewpoints in this blog are those of individual workshop elves, and do not necessarily represent those of www.SoftStarShoes.com
Trish has been an entrepreneur, marketer and maker ever since she crushed her first lemonade stand at age five. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, she spent many summers running barefoot with her sisters. These early memories later inspired her to build a brand which embraced the joy and freedom of childhood with the health and science of minimal footwear.
Trish relishes evolving the company to grow stronger and more competitive with each passing year. She is a frequent expert panelist for both e-commerce and entrepreneurship conferences. Trish enjoys spending time with her family, dogs and ducks on their property in Oregon and loves the proximity to both surf and snow. She has a background in Engineering Physics and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
