subscribe to style file blog via RSSShoe Jewelry We Can Get Out In Front Of
September 21, 2009 2:05 pm
A quote from Louise Bourgeois greeted attendees at today’s Meadham Kirchhoff show: “My knives are like a tongue,” read the flyer left on the seats. The rest of the quotation is worth citing, too—”My knives are like a tongue—I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack.”—because if the clothes on the M/K runway conjured that sentiment abstractly, it was all but literalized by the jewelry affixed to the models’ shoes. Created by Jordan Askill, in collaboration with Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff, the electroplated resin adornments licked out from the heels of the oxfords worn with every look, appearing birdlike from one angle, bladelike from another. “Ben and Ed wanted something fragile for the shoes,” explained Askill. “Something in contrast to the stompy-ness of the shoe itself, fragile and precious.” Askill developed the Meadham Kirchhoff shoe jewelry from a sculpture of a bird he’d been working on; now the shoe jewelry has, in turn, inspired Battle Cat, the sculpture he’s installing at the Fashion East menswear presentation later this week. Menswear editors ought to keep their eyes peeled for Askill’s wares, as well as his artwork—he worked with Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme prior to launching his eponymous jewelry range last year, and his pieces are sold at Dover Street Market and Rick Owens. The Meadham Kirchhoff collaboration is his first, but Askill’s strategy of snatching inspiration wherever it finds you is well honed. “Found objects, movies I’ve seen, memories, watching the way birds fly together, in one shape,” he says, reeling off reference points. “Whatever’s on my mind, basically.”
tags: Benjamin Kirchhoff, Ed Meadham, Hedi Slimane, Jordon Askill, Rick Owens
