Kobi Levi: Shoe Art Extraordinaire!

I just came across this talented, inventive shoe designer artist.                     

  His name is Kobi Levi and he is Israeli.  If you like shoes you will flip when you see the virtual shoe museum site and it's hundreds of pairs of unusual shoes.  He also has a blog.   Shoes are classified by style, material, concept etc.  There is even shoe jewelry, furniture, sculpture and other objects.  Kobi has been very busy and his designs are hallucinatory!    And apart from the sculpture shoes, they are all wearable.... carefully created to fit the human foot. 

www.virtualshoemuseum.com/vsm/r.php?col=person... -

                             

 Some of them are ugly/wonderful and I would love to display them along with the rest of                      my collection of great shoes.

                                                                    Laundry baskets?

                                                                   Caddies ?

                      Although Kobi designs all sorts of shoes, his high heels are the stars of his repertoire.  I have always been interested in high shoes, as art and sometimes I even wear them!  It is irresistible to have the perspective that you get by being a few inches taller.  And of course the illusion of long legs is always flattering to the form.

   High heels, of course, were once worn by both men and women, usually of the upper classes for distinction and by the lower for practicability.  For example Egyptian butchers on murals from 3500 BC are depicted as wearing high clogs to keep dry from the blood of dead beasts!.

                                                                These are called Miao

                                                   These are christened: Blonde Ambition

Mallard

                                                                 Here is part of the bird series:

Swan

Toucan

              
 Here is interesting excerpt from wikipedia about high heels which are always a topic of debate among feminists:

 The history of the high-heeled shoe, or a shoe whose heel is higher than the toe, is a matter of contentious and heated discussion. Shoes in general have typically served as markers of gender, class, race, and ethnicity—and both the foot and the shoe have been imbued with powerful phallic and fertility symbols as evidenced in the contemporary practice of tying shoes to a newlywed couple's car.


No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe. Fraught with contradiction, heels paradoxically inhibit movement in order to increase it, at least in appearance.


 Standing in heels, a woman presents herself already half-walking while at the same time reducing the length of her step, fostering the illusion of speed while suggesting an imminent fall. The higher and more unstable the heel, the more clearly these contradictions are expressed (Kunzle, 2004).


 Doctors and scholars alike have argued about the physical and cultural effects, both positive and negative, that heels have had not only on women, but on society as a whole.

I can only say that I am still enamored with high shoes and have worn many in my day. The ones of these last seasons though are the most dangerous ones I have come across.  Risk of falling, discomfort or impracticability does not hinder the sales or wearing of these alarmingly high shoes. It takes a special talent to even walk in them.  Which makes it all the more intriguing  as a social phenomenon.  

 But I digress again..... back to master wizard, Kobi Levi

Now how do these work?  

                                                 This pair should be called "Mick" as in Jagger.

                             This porcelain shoe from the virtual shoe Museum is by the Dutch Designer Marieka Ratsma  http://www.mariekaratsma.blogspot.com/.  Elly Ratsma kindly wrote me to tell me that I had mislabeled it.   The Virtual Shoe museum is a wonderland of creation but apparently the shoes are by all different designers.  I am not sure of the designers below but pretty inspired, non?

                                                                    
                                                    Hoof boots with pistol heels:

Hairy mules?

These unlikely mole slippers are among my favorites

   These shoe creations are more about art and the possibilities of taking something beyond what has been done before than they are about the mystique surrounding shoes.  To take something to the next level is something to which all artists aspire..  

                                                          Kobi Levi  The artist speaks:

 " In my artistic footwear design the shoe is my canvas. The trigger to create a new piece comes when an idea, a concept and/or an image comes to mind. The combination of the image and footwear creates a new hybrid and the design/concept comes to life. The piece is a wearable sculpture. It is "alive" with/out the foot/body. Most of the inspirations are out of the "shoe-world", and give the footwear an extreme transformation. The result is usually humoristic with a unique point of view about footwear. Another aspect of the creation is the realization. All the pieces are hand-made in my studio. The challenging technical development is the key to bring the design to life in the best way."

www.virtualshoemuseum.com/vsm/r.php?col=person... - by various artists.