| Description |
1 online resource (272 p.) |
| Contents |
Preface: The frailty of commodity chains -- From head to toe -- From the designer's point of view. From "the global" to "the girl" ; When is a shoe a shoe? -- Feet and fit. The world at her fit: scale-making, uniqueness, and standardization ; Cinderella on the Pearl River Delta: who has the power to translate? -- The global in the rearview mirror -- Interlude: a landscape of factories ; The ruins and rubble of Novo Hamburgo: skill and melancholia in a global shoe town -- Conclusion: what did we learn about globalization by looking at shoes? -- Coda: shoe is a gipsy business |
| Summary |
"Much of what we see and imagine in the high-profile world of luxury shoes is all glamour--stylish men and women scouting and displaying trends we never imagined but rave over once discovered. But a shoe is a commodity, and the elite world of fashion design must work hand-in-glove with the factories that produce innovative footware. In The Global Shoe, Claudio Benzecry gives us an in-depth look at the shoe industry, showing how all the people who contribute to shoe production, from jet-setting trend spotters to factory floor laborers, are engaged in the enterprise of fashion design, and that even the most logistical types of knowledge contribute to this creative act. First are the trendspotters, who make use of expensive shoe trend databases. Then come the designers, who fly around the world buying as many shoes as they can before sketching up new designs inspired by these fashions. Top candidates are sent, along with detailed instructions about materials, to China so that a prototype can be made. But that's not the end of the story. Once a prototype has been made, it has to be tested on real feet. Enter the fit girl. These are women with just the right size and shape feet who test and model shoes. They are far more powerful than you would imagine, however. A shoe design cannot be approved if a fit model declares a shoe too uncomfortable. Only after they've given the stamp of approval does a shoe go on to production. Working with designers, the fit girls and factory managers strategize about how to edit a design to get the fit, materials, and look just right. Ultimately, Benzecry uncovers that the global production of commodities is not so divided as we usually think, with the intellectual labor of design taking place in the first world and the manual labor of production in the developing world. Rather, the work of making a shoe from start to finish requires a global movement of ideas and expertise"-- Provided by publisher |
| Notes |
Description based upon print version of record |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Shoe industry.
|
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Women's shoes -- Design
|
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Fashion and globalization.
|
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SOCIAL SCIENCE / General.
|
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Fashion and globalization
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Shoe industry
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| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
0226815897 |
|
9780226815893 |
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