Remaking Brogue.
I’m looking at a shoe shop.
I’m staring at a footwear store.
In other words, I’m observing the green window displays of a boutique selling loafers, Oxford, Chelsea Boots, Monk strap shoes, Derby.
I wonder what these pairs of shoes share in common.
I’m curious about the similarity between them.
To put it differently, I speculate about what bring these shoes together.
Is it their disposition? Their composition? Their style?
Is it their arrangement on the display shelf? The materials they are made of? The patterns that adorn them?
To rephrase, are they united by the fact that they all stand side by side, facing passersby? By the leather, the laces, the soles that constitute them? By the perforations on their toe caps?
Remembering Georges Perec, I focus my eye on this latter detail that just seems part of the landscape at first.
Influenced by Georges Perec’s attention to insignificant elements, I concentrate myself on the little holes on most of the footwear here.
As mentioned, enriched by the author’s efforts to seize the most ordinary items, I notice the brogue perforations decorating almost every pair of shoes in the shop.
Side by side, the perforations form volutes.
The holes follow one another to draw graceful curves.
I’m saying that the dotted lines create elegant arabesques.
What do these patterns mean?
Do these motifs represent anything?
My question is why are the dots aligned that way?
I see figurative shapes, but it’s only my imagination.
I picture fountains, organic forms, wrought iron, but these holes seem purely ornamental.
In other words, these abstract patterns appear to serve the only purpose of filling toe caps.
I recall how Agnès Varda steps into the shoes of the people she interviews.
I remember her imitating the “gleaners” she questions in her practice.
Let me rephrase, I see her again “gleaning” in her own way, gathering testimonies and images with her camera.
Now it’s my turn: to understand this shoe store, I imitate its shoemaker.
Like Agnès Varda, I grasp the techniques and tools that define this space.
I reformulate; to seize this place, I try my hand at brogueing.
I reproduce the brogue by drawing its dots on paper.
I imitate the brogue by punching holes into scraps of leather.
I recreate the brogue in my own way by bringing it to life through animation.
Bibliography:
Georges Perec. ([1974] 1999). ‘Species of Spaces’. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin. Excerpt pp. 46–56.
The Gleaners and I. (2000). [Blu-ray]. Directed by Agnès Varda. Paris: Ciné Tamaris.
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