Dwennimmen Boot
Category: Footwear
Competitions: Africa
This project, delves into shoe design from the African perspective. I am inspired by a variety of elements and philosophies. Joy Adamson’s paintings. She was a Kenyan pre-independence female artist. The skirts worn by the Himba women of the Kunene Region in the northern parts of Namibia. Valentino Garavani Fashion Collections and the Incwadi Yothando beaded love letters of the Zulu of Southern Africans. They all embrace the use of flaps of various fabrics and beads as a medium of technology to create garments. Joy Adamson and the Himba used leather cut into strips to fashion layered skirts. Valentino too, made a skirt using fabric cut into strips. The authors of the Zulu love letters fashioned their layered flap skirt from beads. The designer was inspired by two of the creators use of the flap surface as a medium on which visual elements could be displayed. While Valentino chose to simply display geometrical forms, the Zulu love letters use semiotics that convey messages. These messages are coded communications that may carry common insignia, or symbols whose meaning is a secret known only to a couple. The designer choose to use the Ghanaian Akan ethnic communities semiotics known as Adinkira to convey the messages on the boots designed as they where deemed most appropriate for the message at hand. All of the elements described are pulled together to design the boots presented in the project. The visuals, captions and the explanations in the literature below will lead you through the design journey. The shoes designed should be strong and yet yield to needs of a community and sustainability proffered through providing employment for artisans who make the shoes. The shoe should yield to the requirement of the user’s foot and life and become the content of the form, not remain the form of the content and dictate the shape that the foot will take. The shoes aesthetics should preserve and also evolve with culture so that it speaks to and grows a community. The shoe should use materials that are locally sourced in as much as it possible to cut down on air miles and stimulate local economies. The project is strongly tied to SDG I ( No poverty) as it will provide artisanal employment, SDG 8 Decent Work and economic growth - as it will support economic growth for the artisans and their dependents and communities, SDG 12 responsible production and consumption- as a high quality product that lasts will be attained. The high quality product does not pander to the whims of fast fashion. SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities, as the product is culturally relevant to the consumers it targets.
