‘The last thing I want is my shoes to stand out’
American Sociological Association blog article exploring embodied experience, identity and footwear choice amongst patients with complex health conditions.
'It's kind of where the shoe gets you to I suppose':
Materializing Identity with Footwear.
Open source article in the ‘Materiality’ issue of Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, edited by Sophie Woodward and Tom Fisher, published by Intellect.
High Heels – Power or Patriarchy?
Emily Nichols discusses her shoe-related findings from ‘A Girls’ Night Out Research Project’ at Newcastle University, investigating (in)appropriate femininity on a night out in Newcastle.
Dressed Bodies Symposium
The ‘If the Shoe Fits’ project team hosted a one-day symposium at Sheffield University on 17th July 2013. The stellar line-up of speakers included Lucia Ruggerone, Naomi Braithwaite, Anna Catalini, Karen Harvey, Julia Twigg and Chrissy Buse, Karin Lovgren, Mary Madden, Emily Taylor, Emily Nicholls, Jacki Willson, Alison Carr and Pam Walker.
Toeing the Line:
A sequence of video stories on the theme of travelling a path.
do you wear Clarks Originals?
Call for focus group participants -
The ‘If the Shoe Fits’ project in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield is now approaching its end, however there is still time to participate in the research.
Young Men, Footwear and the 'Doing' of Masculinities
Conference paper for the Canadian Sociological Association Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Victoria British Columbia, 3rd-8th June 2013.
Dressed Bodies: A Symposium - registration now open
To mark the end of the three-year research project If the Shoe Fits: Footwear, Identity and Transition, funded by the ESRC, we are hosting an interdisciplinary symposium in conjunction with the Centre for Gender Research.
Shoes as material expressions of a designer’s self
Naomi Braithwaite discusses her ethnographic research with contemporary British based luxury shoe designers and the ways their shoes come to embody ‘both visible and invisible traces of [the designer’s] creative and cultural biography’
Worn Shoes: Identity, Memory and Footwear
As we enter the last 4 months of the If the Shoe Fits project the team are analysing and writing up the data that has been gathered over the last 3 years. At the end of February the first of our publications made it into the peer-reviewed journal Sociological Research Online.
A Week in Mary Beard's Shoes
Over the last week social media feeds have been rife with comments about historian Mary Beard's controversial decision to 'come out' and write about her love of shoes for the Daily Mail (8th May 2013). With almost 3 years of research on the sociological significance of shoes now behind us the ITSF team felt compelled to contribute to the debate by responding to Turner’s attack.
Call for Papers: 'Dressed Bodies: A Symposium'
To mark the end of the three-year research project If the Shoe Fits: Footwear, Identity and Transition, funded by the ESRC, we are hosting an interdisciplinary symposium in conjunction with the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Sheffield. We invite submissions investigating the dressed body in social and cultural contexts with a concern to deepen understandings of identity as an embodied process.
Search the archive for more articles from the Footwear Research Network:
More From the Footwear Research Network…
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![A pair of tan leather Jacoform shoes owned by Footwear Research Network contributor Professor Andrew Groves photographed against a black background.]()
Contributors
Meet our internationally acclaimed network of contributors.
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![A photograph of a shoe gallery at Shoes of No Shoes (SONS), Kruisem, Belgium.]()
Museums & Archives
A list of publicly available museums and archives in alphabetical order by country.
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Reading List
A list of recommended past and present academic texts on footwear.
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![Photograph of shoes on display in 1980s style mock shop front at the Bata Shoe Museum's 'Dressed to Impress' exhibition in Toronto © 2023 Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada (Photo: Margaret Mulligan)]()
Events
Keep up to date with footwear events and exhibitions worldwide.
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![Collage or different shoes. Artwork by Maximillian Malone for the Footwear Research Network, 2021.]()
Get Involved
Find out how to become a network member, contributor or partner.
If the shoe fits:
FootweaR, Identity & Transition
The Footwear Research Network is an outcome of the ESRC-funded research project If the Shoe Fits: Footwear Identity and Transition at the University of Sheffield (2010-2013). Learn more about the project and research outputs here.
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The Footwear Research Network is an outcome of the ESRC-funded research project If the Shoe Fits: Footwear Identity and Transition at the University of Sheffield (2010-2013).
Learn more here
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Watch the ‘If the Shoe Fits’ documentary to learn more about the research project and the relationship between wearers and their shoes. Filmed and produced by Sheffield Vision.
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Learn more about the ‘If the Shoe Fits’ research team and board of advisors.
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Following the success of the original ITSF project, further funding was secured in 2015 for a follow-on project, ‘If the Shoe Fits: Enabling Patient-Centred Podiatry’.
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A number of papers and publications were produced directly from the ‘If the Shoe Fits’ research and in association with the project. Access the full list here.