Over 300 eye-popping platform shoe styles, in full color. These shoes span the world and the decades. The fun and daring designs include sporty, daytime, and evening styles, in the form of tie-ups, clogs, boots, slip-ons and sandals with ankle straps. Materials include snake skin, fur, glitter, colored leather, woven raffia and fabric materials. Some are practical, others simply outrageous, and all simply delightful.
All jaws drop when high school track and football star Tyler Spence throws in his helmet and cleats to form Dance Machine a "white boy" funk band with four fellow classmates. Rising in popularity, the band sets off on the road to a remote corner of their State to play for yet another Sadie Hawkins Dance. Car troubles turn what should have been a simple "gig-n-go" into a two-day ordeal. An unexpected encounter with an old teammate puts conflict into motion for Tyler and his friends when they find themselves at the mercy of the local Sheriff and townsfolk who all agree "they'd never seen boys wearing shoes like those before " With no way out Tyler is forced to face his rival head-on in a climatic showdown. PLATFORMS is a one of a kind coming-of-age road-trip story with a fun funky vibe making it a timeless classic in the same way the 1970s fashions did for denim, sequins, and high-heeled shoes, "for men" ...
Everything around us is designed and the word 'design' has become part of our everyday experience. But how much do we know about it? Fifty Shoes That Changed the World imparts that knowledge listing the top 50 shoe designs that have made a substantial impact in the world of design today. From the 1863 Frye boot to Zaha Hadid's 2008 Melissa shoe, each entry offers a short appraisal to explore what has made their iconic status and the designers that give them a special place in design history.
COSTUME, CLOTHES & FASHION. This one-of-a-kind, A-to-Z reference work contains over 150 fascinating entries and intriguing sidebars that look at feet and adornment of feet across the many culturesof the world throughout time. A wide range of international and multicultural topics are covered, including footbinding, fetishes, diseases, customs and beliefs, shoe construction, myths and folktales, the history of footwear, iconic brands and types of shoes, removing shoes upon entering a house, covering feet up for social customs, and the types of footwear worn around the world.
Founder of the phenomenon social media account PreachersNSneakers tackles how faith, capitalism, consumerism, and (wannabe) celebrity have collided and asks both believers and nonbelievers alike: how much is too much? What started as a joke account on Instagram has turned into a movement. Through this provocative project, the founder of PreachersNSneakers is helping thousands of Jesus followers wrestle with the inevitable dilemmas created by our Western culture obsessed with image and entertainment. In PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities, Ben Kirby approaches many of the difficult questions plaguing countless Christians’ minds, presenting experiences and input from both sides of difficult questions, such as: Should pastors grow wealthy off of religion, and can their churches ever be too large? Do we really believe that divine blessings are monetary, or is that just religious wallpaper to hide our own greed? Is there space in Christendom for celebrities like Kanye and Bieber to exist without distorting the good news? What about this: Is it wrong for someone—even wrong for author Ben Kirby—to call out faith leaders online and leverage “cancel culture” to affect change? PreachersNSneakers will navigate these challenging questions and many more with humor, wit, candor, and a few never-before-published hijinks. Each chapter will explore the various sides of the debate, holding space for us to make up our own minds. This book is not about finding the perfect, “right” way to do something, but instead learning how to articulate what we believe, why we believe it, and what to do when we want to stand up against cultural norms. This book will doubtlessly become a staple for church small groups, college ministries, and book clubs, emboldening struggling believers who want to live a more genuine faith. After all, the Lord works in mysterious colorways.
This unique four-volume encyclopedia examines the historical significance of fashion trends, revealing the social and cultural connections of clothing from the precolonial times to the present day. This sweeping overview of fashion and apparel covers several centuries of American history as seen through the lens of the clothes we wear—from the Native American moccasin to Manolo Blahnik's contribution to stiletto heels. Through four detailed volumes, this work delves into what people wore in various periods in our country's past and why—from hand-crafted family garments in the 1600s, to the rough clothing of slaves, to the sophisticated textile designs of the 21st century. More than 100 fashion experts and clothing historians pay tribute to the most notable garments, accessories, and people comprising design and fashion. The four volumes contain more than 800 alphabetical entries, with each volume representing a different era. Content includes fascinating information such as that beginning in 1619 through 1654, every man in Virginia was required to plant a number of mulberry trees to support the silk industry in England; what is known about the clothing of enslaved African Americans; and that there were regulations placed on clothing design during World War II. The set also includes color inserts that better communicate the visual impact of clothing and fashion across eras.
First published in 1977, The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe examines the realities of foot and shoe eroticism practised by almost all of us, whether consciously or unconsciously. Provocative often witty and always original, the book takes us on a walking tour through history: from Chinese footbinding (completely sexual in intent) and the medieval poulaine (perhaps the most blatantly pornographic shoe ever worn) to the outrageous distortions of the foot gladly suffered by woman over the centuries in the cause of sexual allure. The author explores the obsession with ‘sick’ and ‘tired’ feet and the huge industry that has sprung up to cater to our negativism. He gives a psychosexual guide to us via footwear, grouping men’s and women’s shoes into such categories as sexy, sexless, neuter, bisexual, sensuous, peacock, masculine, eunuch and machismo. This book will be of interest to students of history, gender studies, sexuality studies and fashion.
Wacky Wisdom about the Weird and Wonderful Things of Life that bring Refreshment to Your Soul Martin Babb's slightly skewed view of the world makes for engaging, enlightening, and enlivening reading as he waxes eloquent about the weird and wonderful things of life. Amid the humor, you'll find spiritual refreshment for your soul and wisdom for living life as God intended. In this hilarious collection of brief writings about the funnier side of life, you'll find titles like: "It's OK to Sing to Mushrooms, but Never Goose a Moose" "What Would Happen if Beauty Ignored the Beast?" "When Life Gives You Cicadas, Make Earrings" "What Happens When You Squeeze a Chihuahua?" "Did the Pilgrims Drive a Mayflower Subcompact?" "The Best Stage for a Teenager Is the One That's Leaving Town" Each humorous essay is just two or three pages long and concludes with an easy-to-swallow lesson. But you'll hardly feel the lessons for the laughter. Take a much-needed break, put your feet up, relax, and prepare to laugh. Your soul will be hilariously refreshed.
The Caribbean “market woman” is ingrained in the popular imagination as the archetype of black womanhood in countries throughout the region. Challenging this stereotype and other outdated images of black women, Downtown Ladies offers a more complex picture by documenting the history of independent international traders—known as informal commercial importers, or ICIs—who travel abroad to import and export a vast array of consumer goods sold in the public markets of Kingston, Jamaica. Both by-products of and participants in globalization, ICIs operate on multiple levels and, since their emergence in the 1970s, have made significant contributions to the regional, national, and global economies. Gina Ulysse carefully explores how ICIs, determined to be self-employed, struggle with government regulation and other social tensions to negotiate their autonomy. Informing this story of self-fashioning with reflections on her own experience as a young Haitian anthropologist, Ulysse combines the study of political economy with the study of individual and collective identity to reveal the uneven consequences of disrupting traditional class, color, and gender codes in individual societies and around the world.
