Our Shoes, Our Selves: 40 Women, 40 Stories, 40 Pairs of Shoes

Book Description

Some shoes are kept not because they are expensive or rare, but because they once accompanied someone through irreplaceable moments in life.

Our Shoes, Our Selves: 40 Women, 40 Stories, 40 Pairs of Shoes invites 40 women from the fields of politics, media, art, literature, sports, science, and business to choose one pair of shoes that holds special meaning for them, and to share the life story behind it. These shoes may be the heels worn to an important meeting, the running shoes that completed a marathon, the dance shoes that accompanied years of training, or a pair of worn-out old boots that the owner could never quite bring herself to throw away.

The book features personal stories from women including Barbara Bush, Christiane Amanpour, Katie Couric, Bobbi Brown, Misty Copeland, Maya Lin, and Christy Turlington Burns. Through shoes, they speak of careers, family, friendship, trauma, courage, and new beginnings. Here, shoes are no longer merely fashion accessories, but intimate personal archives close to the body, recording how their wearers stood, walked, and gradually became who they are today.

Photographer Melanie Dunea captures both portraits and images of the shoes, revealing the materials, wear, and traces of use in each pair, allowing the objects and the personalities of their wearers to reflect one another. The refined images retain the quality of fashion photography while carrying the intimacy of a personal interview, making each story feel like a double portrait of memory and identity

Our Shoes, Our Selves is not a catalogue of shoe styles, nor is it centered on brands or fashion trends. What it truly explores is how people place emotion into everyday objects, and how a pair of shoes can carry life’s turning points, professional achievements, and self-identity. Turning its pages may also remind readers of a pair in their own closet—shoes no longer often worn, yet still representing an important chapter of life.


Details

Author: Bridget Moynahan, Amanda Benchley, Melanie Dunea
Publisher: Abram Books
Publication Year: 2019
Size: 26 × 21 cm
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 176 pages