Jane Gershon Weitzman's new book, Art and Sole, out this month from HarperCollins, features over 150 glorious images of shoes—made of everything from feathers and paper to frosting and crystals. Weitzman, wife of famed shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, is the mastermind behind the architecture and window displays of her husband’s eponymous Madison Avenue store, which typically features fantasy shoes, meant to be admired, not worn, and commissioned from artists around the world. "The response to my search for artists was extraordinary from the very start," Weitzman writes in the introduction. "While some of the artists already made 'art shoes,' most of them did not—and in the latter cases, there was something I saw in their work that I thought would translate into a creative window display ... Finding the artists became addictive for us—as was the thrill of seeing their finsihed pieces." This book serves as a compilation of the best shoe art, out of the thousands of designs that have appeared in the Stuart Weitzman windows since the store’s opening in 1996. See the seven craziest highlights.
The Robert Steele pieces are all made entirely of corrugated cardboard.
Lucas Zarebinski
These Firoozeh Bowden creations are made of steel, metal mesh, copper, nickel silver, and brass.
Lucas Zarebinski
This shoe by Robert Tabor is made from acrylic, vinyl, and rhinestones.
Lucas Zarebinski
Anthony Rosiello constucted this shoe sculpture using Arches hot press watercolor paper and archival glue.
Lucas Zarebinski
Katherine Mathisen hand-sculpted this shoe out of raku-fired clay.
Lucas Zarebinski
This Sharon von Senden piece is made from stained glass, Swarovski crystals, and vintage stones.
Lucas Zarebinski
Joan McClutchy de Vidargas sculpted the shoe from bronze.
