Ugly Shoes

I noticed that the bag this boy was holding had the Buffalo Shoes Logo on it, which made me think about the connotations of this logo. Buffalo shoes are heavily associated with the 1990's trend for extremely high platform shoes, which was lead by The Spice Girls, who made these shoes iconic. 

I own two pairs of Buffalo shoes. One plain black, the other black leopard print (this print in itself has many connotations, from African Safaris to tacky Essex style). Whenever I wear them my mum always complains how ugly she thinks they are. This inspired me to combine Buffalo platforms with 'ugly' trainers to design some really really hideous shoes!

I based the structure of the shoes on the classic Buffalo shape and added detailing from a selection of nasty looking trainers. I chose a boring,  unattractive colour scheme of grey, black, white, red and blue. I wrote 'Ugly' on the side of the shoe in bold red capitals as a literal reference to what the shoes represent, like with my 'City' jacket.

In an ideal world, these shoes would be made to be worn with my final garment, outfit or collection. However, if this is not possible, designing these shoes has inspired me to to find some very similar shoes for my final photoshoot. Coincidentally, on the day that I was designing these shoes, I walked past a bin with a bag of shoes poking out and nosily had a rummage in case i found a free pair of decent shoes. I found the most amazing pair of chunky black and very 'Ugly' 90's platform shoes!  Unfortunately, they were far too small for me, but were the perfect size for my friend Eloise. She has started to wear them every day, so now it feels as if these shoes have become part of her style identity and a physical symbol of our friendship. I may use her as my model, featuring these shoes in the final photoshoot.