Description
BOND’s 1 Nail and 3 Nail Stilettos are explorations of the pressure on women to maintain traditionally feminine appearances for acceptance in society. Nails are categorized as finishing hardware, designed to serve a function and to be visible, and thus represent society’s objectification of women, expecting them to serve men while being visually attractive. The plexiglass shoe draws on Cinderella’s glass slipper, and the associated expectation of women to conform. Standing is possible in this shoe with the nail resting behind the foot, but walking would be a perilous task, and with nails piercing through the bed of the shoe’s heel, these pieces are a play on the phrase “beauty is pain. By merging the stereotypically feminine stiletto with the stereotypically masculine nail, these pieces question characterizing women as weak, instead proposing that they’re “tough as nails.”
Laser-cut and hand-molded plexiglass shoe punctured with a mirror-polished brass nail affixed with resin.