Table of Con­tents | http://​dx​.doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​7​4​2​/​I​M​A​G​E​.​F​C​M​.​9​.​2.3 | PDF

The Ruby Slippers Across Time, Space, and Media

Ele­na Siemens

“Fash­ion is fluid” —-

Fash­ion Is…
(The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art)

The “real secret of the ruby slip­pers,” Salman Rushdie argues, “is not that ‘there’s no place like home,’ but rather that there is no longer any such place as home” (57). Intend­ed as a crit­i­cal intro­duc­tion, this essay traces the ruby slip­pers’ fas­ci­nat­ing jour­ney from the orig­i­nal text by L. Frank Baum (1900) to John Fleming’s clas­sic film (1939) to Vogue’s 2005 fash­ion shoot by Annie Lei­bovitz. I fur­ther dis­cuss a more recent inter­pre­ta­tion of the ruby slip­pers, The Cos­mos: Mete­or shoes by Cana­di­an design­er John Fluevog (Spring/Summer 2016). Their soles inscribed “Cre­at­ed in the Cos­mos, Worn on Earth,” the Mete­ors also cel­e­brate the road as the des­ti­na­tion. I com­pare Fluevog to Gucci’s Star-Trek inspired cam­paign Guc­ciand­Be­yond (Fall 2017) and the brand’s equal­ly out-of-this-world Utopi­an Fan­ta­sy cam­paign (Spring/Summer 2018). My crit­i­cal sources include Alain de Bot­ton and Andy Warhol, who both pro­fess their fas­ci­na­tion with air trav­el (and air­ports), as well as Bene­dict Anderson’s writ­ing on “imag­ined com­mu­ni­ties” and Dick Hebdige’s foun­da­tion­al work on style sub­cul­tures. The essay’s con­clud­ing sec­tions dis­cuss the com­mer­cial appro­pri­a­tion of fash­ion, as well as fashion’s open-end­ed definition.

Fluevog Vancouver

Fluevog’s store on Granville Street in Van­cou­ver, its whim­si­cal façade adorned with gild­ed angels and neon lights, recalls a world of mag­ic and fan­ta­sy. One of the city’s old­est and longest streets, grit­ty Granville stands “in sharp con­trast to Vancouver’s mod­ern, ‘city-of-glass’ archi­tec­ture” (Siemens, The­atre 77). Sub­ject to flam­boy­ant gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in recent years, this street still pre­serves some old-fash­ioned land­marks, such as two ven­er­a­ble enter­tain­ment venues, the Orpheum and the Vogue (dat­ing from the 1920s and the 1940s, respec­tive­ly). The Fluevog store (opened in 1973) ini­tial­ly “was an elab­o­rate bed­room, with shoes grac­ing a giant bed” (“Our Sto­ry – About Fluevog”). As described on the brand’s offi­cial web­site, one of John Fluevog’s first designs was The Pil­grim (1970), its “bold­ness […] was com­plete­ly against the main­stream of the time, and John has kept it uncon­ven­tion­al ever since!” (“Our Sto­ry – About Fluevog”). Fluevog has attract­ed such celebri­ty cus­tomers as Robert Alt­man, Alice Coop­er, Madon­na, Bey­on­cé, and Lady Gaga. In 2013, Fluevog shoes became the offi­cial footwear of flight atten­dants on Air­Cana­da Rouge. The brand’s site com­ments: “John’s always toyed with the idea of”Flying Vogs" (“Our Sto­ry – About Fluevog”). The auda­cious Cos­mos: Mete­or shoes fur­ther attest to Fluevog’s fas­ci­na­tion with trav­el on this plan­et and beyond as a pre­ferred mode of living.

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

Celebration of Escape

In his BFI vol­ume on The Wiz­ard of Oz, Salman Rushdie chal­lenges the tra­di­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion that the ruby slip­pers deliv­er Dorothy the gift of return­ing to her fam­i­ly home in Kansas. “The Kansas described by L. Frank Baum,” Rushdie points out, “is a depress­ing place, in which every­thing is grey as far as the eye can see – the prairie is grey and so is the house in which Dorothy lives” (16). “The Kansas of the film,” he continues:

is a lit­tle less unremit­ting­ly bleak than the Kansas of the book, if only because of the intro­duc­tion of the three farmhands and Pro­fes­sor Marvel—four char­ac­ters who will find their “rhymes”, their coun­ter­parts, in the Three Com­pan­ions of Oz and the Wiz­ard him­self. Then again, it is also more ter­ri­fy­ing, because it adds a pres­ence of real evil: the angu­lar Miss Gulch, with a pro­file that could carve a joint, rid­ing stiffly on her bicy­cle with a hat on her head like a plum pud­ding, or a bomb, and claim­ing the pro­tec­tion of the Law for her cru­sade against Toto. Thanks to Miss Gulch, the movie’s Kansas is informed not only by the sad­ness of dirt-pover­ty, but also by the bad­ness of would-be dog mur­der­ers. (17)

Rushdie asks: “And this is the home that ‘there’s no place like’? This is the lost Eden that we are asked to pre­fer (as Dorothy does) in Oz?” (17). He emphat­i­cal­ly says “no” to both of these ques­tions. Instead, he insists that The Won­der­ful Wiz­ard of Oz:

is unar­guably a film about the joys of going away, of leav­ing the grey­ness and enter­ing the colour, of mak­ing a new life in the “place where there isn’t any trou­ble.” “Over the Rain­bow” is, or ought to be, the anthem of all the world’s migrants, all those who go in search of the place where “the dreams that you dare to dream real­ly come true.” It is a cel­e­bra­tion of Escape, a grand paean of the Unroot­ed Self, a hymn—the hymn—to Else­where. (23)

Vogue’s Take

Vogue’s 2005 take on The Won­der­ful Wiz­ard of Oz deliv­ers a sim­i­lar mes­sage. Styled by Grace Cod­ding­ton and pho­tographed by Annie Lei­bovitz, this pho­to­shoot employs the same Tech­ni­col­or palette as the clas­sic 1939 film. Vogue’s Dorothy is por­trayed by Keira Knight­ley, who famous­ly played lead­ing roles in sev­er­al screen adap­ta­tions of lit­er­ary clas­sics, includ­ing Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karen­i­na (dir. Joe Wright, 2012), which was award­ed an Oscar for its cos­tumes by Jacque­line Dur­ran. Dur­ran fol­lowed the director’s sug­ges­tion that “the cos­tumes should be 1870s in shape but have the archi­tec­tur­al sim­plic­i­ty of the 1950s” (qtd. in Siemens, Street 10). The only instance when Dur­ran remained faith­ful to Tol­stoy was ­Anna’s black dress from a key scene in the nov­el. In Street Fash­ion Moscow, I cite Wim Wen­ders’ poet­ic pas­sage on the “nar­ra­tive pow­er” of clothes:

A crispy ironed shirt!
A woman’s life her entire life show­ing the suf­fer­ings of a dress!
(qtd. in Siemens, Street 10)

I fur­ther refer to Anne Hollander’s See­ing Through Clothes, which dis­cuss­es the rela­tion­ship between “clothes in the works of art” and “clothes in real life” (qtd. in Siemens, Street 11). Accord­ing to Hol­lan­der, “the way clothes strike the eye comes to be medi­at­ed by cur­rent visu­al assump­tions made in pic­tures of dressed peo­ple” (qtd. in Siemens, Street 11). She points out that start­ing from the 20th cen­tu­ry, cin­e­ma and pho­tog­ra­phy have become dom­i­nant in pro­vid­ing inspi­ra­tion and guid­ance for the way peo­ple dress.

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

Vogue’s savvy Wiz­ard of Oz pho­to­shoot sim­i­lar­ly aims to inspire the read­er, as well as sell fash­ion. In it, Dorothy wears design­er clothes and a series of ruby slip­pers by, among oth­ers, Balen­ci­a­ga, Oscar de la Renta, Rochas, Lan­vin, and Chanel Haute Cou­ture. Grace Cod­ding­ton, then the Cre­ative Direc­tor of Vogue, also enlist­ed a group of diverse con­tem­po­rary artists, from Jasper Johns (best known for his icon­ic Flag paint­ings) to Jeff Koons (the author of mon­u­men­tal pup­py sculp­tures and inflat­able rab­bits, fea­tured more recent­ly in Louis Vuitton’s 2017 fash­ion cam­paign), to take part in the shoot. Vogue leaves out the “grey­ness” of Dorothy’s fam­i­ly home in Kansas; instead, the cam­paign focus­es exclu­sive­ly on the bril­liant Tech­ni­col­or Land of Oz, where “the dreams that you dare to dream real­ly come true.”

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

The Cosmos: Meteor 2016

The Cos­mos: Mete­or by John Fluevog can also be seen as a con­tem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tion of the ruby slip­pers. The Meteor’s prod­uct descrip­tion reads: “It’s not always easy to wish upon a falling star, but thanks to this Cos­mos Fam­i­ly beau­ty, it’s eas­i­er than ever to walk up on one” (“Cos­mos Mete­or”). The Mete­or was the “result of care­ful research into what a Mini design might look like after being sent to the moon and back” (“Cos­mos Mete­or”). Unlike the ruby slip­pers, which promise the wear­er a safe return home, the Mete­or cel­e­brates the road as the des­ti­na­tion itself. The open­ing spread of Fluevog Post from Spring/Summer 2016 announces: “Some­where Out There: Star­ing This Spring: The Cos­mos: Mete­ors” (Fluevog Post S/S 2016).

Rem­i­nis­cent of Rushdie, Fluevog’s sen­si­bil­i­ty is char­ac­ter­is­tic of today’s mobile and unset­tled world, where home/shelter is fre­quent­ly a tran­sient space, such as an air­port, its vagabond dwellers form­ing, to bor­row Bene­dict Anderson’s term, an “imag­ined com­mu­ni­ty.” In The Art of Trav­el, Alain de Bot­ton writes about the com­fort he draws from vis­it­ing Heathrow airport:

When feel­ing sad at home, I have often board­ed a train or air­port bus and gone to Heathrow, where, from an obser­va­tion gallery in Ter­mi­nal 2 or from the top floor of the Renais­sance Hotel along the north run­way, I have drawn com­fort from the sight of cease­less land­ing and take-off of air­crafts. (35-36)

De Bot­ton finds it “pleas­ant to hold in mind” that at any time, on some ran­dom after­noon “when las­si­tude and despair threat­en, there is always a plane tak­ing off for some­where, for Baudelaire’s ‘Any­where!’” (39). Baude­laire, by his own admis­sion, “felt more at home in the tran­sient places of trav­el than in his own dwelling” (qtd. in De Bot­ton 35).

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

De Bot­ton also ref­er­ences T. S. Eliot, who “pro­posed that Baude­laire had been the first nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry artist to give expres­sion to the beau­ty of mod­ern trav­el­ling places and machines” (qtd. in De Bot­ton 35). Accord­ing to Elliot, Baude­laire “invent­ed a new kind of roman­tic nos­tal­gia” – “the poésie des départs, the poésie des salles d’attente” (35). De Bot­ton adds that the list can be extend­ed to include “the poésie des sta­tion-ser­vice and the poésie des aéro­ports” (35).

Gucci in the Sky

“Today my favorite kind of atmos­phere is the air­port atmos­phere,” Andy Warhol writes in The Phi­los­o­phy of Andy Warhol (160). He elaborates:

Air­planes and air­ports have my favorite kind of food ser­vice, my favorite kind of bath­rooms, my favorite pep­per­mint Life Savers, my favorite kind of enter­tain­ment, my favorite loud­speak­er address sys­tem, my favorite con­vey­or belts, my favorite graph­ics and col­ors, the best secu­ri­ty checks, the best views, the best per­fume shops, the best employ­ees, the best opti­mism. (160)

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

Warhol con­fess­es: “The atmos­phere is great, it’s the idea of fly­ing that I ques­tion. […] I’m embar­rassed that I don’t like to fly because I love to be mod­ern, but I com­pen­sate by lov­ing air­ports and air­planes so much” (160). More recent­ly, the fash­ion brand Guc­ci has also pro­fessed its fas­ci­na­tion with the atmos­phere of air trav­el, or, more pre­cise­ly, that of inter­galac­tic voy­ages. Pho­tographed by Glen Luchford, the brand’s Fall 2017 cam­paign Guc­ciand­Be­yond “is placed in an inter­galac­tic world inspired by sci-fi motifs from the 1950s and 1960s. The brand also took heavy inspi­ra­tion from ‘Star Trek,’ recre­at­ing the show’s sig­na­ture ele­ments, like the Enter­prise, its trans­porter and bridge for a Gucci’ed out Starfleet crew” (Bobi­la). Jonathan Ho’s review, titled “[Star Trek] Guc­ci Fall 2017 Cam­paign Goes Where No Fash­ion Brand Has Gone Before,” points out:

In Gucci’s vision of retro-future, one can be thank­ful that Seinfeld’s and Star Trek’s vision of the one-piece uni­form with boots nev­er comes to pass, instead, human char­ac­ters togged out in a daz­zling array of tex­tures and colours which com­prise of the Guc­ci Fall 2017 cam­paign greet extra-ter­res­tri­als and bat­tle dinosaurs on Earth’s pre-his­to­ry before being beamed up to psy­che­del­ic star­ship jux­ta­pos­es high fash­ion with sci-fi in a wild, nev­er before seen fan­tas­ti­cal com­po­si­tion which under­scores how bril­liant the com­men­tary is. (Ho)

The review adds that Gucci’s cam­paign “begs you to take a leap to the fash­ion fron­tier, instead of explor­ing brave new worlds, it’s an explo­ration of adven­tur­ous sar­to­ri­al­ism” (Ho)—a sen­ti­ment rem­i­nis­cent of Andy Warhol, who pre­ferred the air­port atmos­phere to fly­ing (Ho). Guc­ci has con­tin­ued its “explo­ration of adven­tur­ous sar­to­ri­al­ism” with the Utopi­an Fan­ta­sy cam­paign (Spring/Summer 2018). For this equal­ly over-the-top cam­paign mix­ing Renais­sance art with Snow White, Guc­ci trad­ed in “glossy pho­tographs for dig­i­tal paint­ings” by Span­ish artist Ignasi Mon­re­al (Urbina). In addi­tion to pro­duc­ing recre­ations of the old mas­ters, Mon­re­al also starred in the dream­like video for the apt­ly titled Guc­ci­Hul­lu­ciantion cam­paign (Spring/Summer 2018). In con­trast to Gucci’s enthu­si­as­tic use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, John Fluevog stub­born­ly con­tin­ues to print his Fluevog Post (and oth­er pro­mo­tion­al paper prod­ucts, such as postcards)—yet more evi­dence of the designer’s mav­er­ick stance.

Be Separate from the Crowd

Rem­i­nis­cent in some aspects of Anderson’s “imag­ined com­mu­ni­ties,” style sub­cul­tures unite indi­vid­u­als (either with­in or out­side nation­al bound­aries), who share com­mon cul­tur­al and sar­to­r­i­al pref­er­ences. In his sem­i­nal work on style sub­cul­tures, Dick Heb­di­ge focus­es on:

the expres­sive forms and rit­u­als of sub­or­di­nate groups—the ted­dy boys and mods and rock­ers, the skin­heads and the punks—who are alter­nate­ly dis­missed, denounced and can­on­ized; treat­ed at dif­fer­ent times as threats to pub­lic order and as harm­less buf­foons. (Heb­di­ge 431)

Inspired by Jean Genet’s The Thief’s Jour­nal, Heb­di­ge is “intrigued by the most mun­dane objects—a safe­ty pin, a point­ed shoe, a motor cycle—which, none the less, like the tube of vase­line [in Genet], take on a sym­bol­ic dimen­sion, becom­ing a form of stig­ma­ta, tokens of a self-imposed exile” (431). Heb­di­ge lat­er real­ized that he “had under­es­ti­mat­ed the pow­er of com­mer­cial cul­ture to appro­pri­ate, and indeed, to pro­duce counter-hege­mon­ic styles” (Heb­di­ge 429). The “mar­ket-savvy” punk exem­pli­fies this par­tic­u­lar­ly well (Heb­di­ge 429).

The Wiz­ard of Oz, and the ruby slip­pers in par­tic­u­lar, have also been the sub­ject of active com­mer­cial appropriation—by the film indus­try, fash­ion mag­a­zines, and var­i­ous fash­ion brands, as well as indi­vid­ual design­ers. The Mete­ors by Fluevog present a dif­fer­ent case, as they allude to the ruby slip­pers only indi­rect­ly: the shared ref­er­ence to trav­el­ling beyond the imag­in­able, “some­where over the rain­bow.” John Fluevog, who fre­quent­ly fol­lows his per­son­al pre­oc­cu­pa­tions and dis­cov­er­ies, is best described as an auteur design­er. For exam­ple, The Weare­vers Danke shoes were first con­ceived in Berlin, where Fluevog was “mes­mer­ized” by Berlin’s “bur­geon­ing mod­ern art,” and the city’s “ultra-func­tion­al urban­i­ty” (“Weare­vers Danke”). Inspired by Berlin’s archi­tec­ture, Fluevog “drew up the designs for a sim­ple, but func­tion­al chelsea bootie on the com­fy cus­tom mold­ed Wear­ev­er sole” (“Weare­vers Danke”). Each pair of Fluevog shoes comes in a soft cot­ton bag inscribed with the fol­low­ing advi­so­ry by John Fluevog:

Always hold on to the truth. Don’t let oth­ers sway your heart. Don’t com­pro­mise your­self for the sake of tem­po­ral groovi­ness. Be sep­a­rate from the crowd that’s awash with nor­mal­i­ty by stand­ing on a firm foun­da­tion. Nev­er waver in your love or faith, and in all you do, please wear my shoes.

Fashion Is…

Ele­na Siemens, Fluevog Van­cou­ver (2016)

The MET’s vol­ume on Fash­ion Is…, from which this essay derives its epi­graph, con­tains “near­ly two hun­dred def­i­n­i­tions of fash­ion [pair­ing] sim­ple descrip­tions with a range of cos­tumes, arti­facts, and works of art from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum’s ency­clo­pe­dic col­lec­tion, includ­ing The Cos­tume Insti­tute” (Trib­ble). The book’s pref­ace points out:

The descrip­tions giv­en are sub­jec­tive obser­va­tions that are open to dis­cus­sion. Fash­ion is a ruf­fle, fash­ion is a crease. Fash­ion is for the head, fash­ion is for the feet. Fash­ion is den­im, fash­ion is dia­monds. Some of the respons­es speak to the tech­nique, while oth­ers are descrip­tive and evoca­tive. (Trib­ble)

This provoca­tive vol­ume solic­its active par­tic­i­pa­tion: “Because fash­ion has no lim­its, read­ers are encour­aged to react, to think, and to cre­ate their own def­i­n­i­tions of “fash­ion” (Trib­ble). The book con­tains a num­ber of def­i­n­i­tions rel­e­vant to my essay: “fash­ion is fan­ta­sy,” “fash­ion is adver­tise­ment,” “fash­ion is pho­tographed,” “fash­ion is illus­trat­ed,” “fash­ion is the past,” and “fash­ion is the future” (Trib­ble). In addi­tion, my dis­cus­sion of the ruby slip­pers’ head-spin­ning jour­ney across time, space, and media sug­gests sev­er­al oth­er entries, such as: “fash­ion is the Yel­low Brick Road,” “fash­ion is imag­ined,” “fash­ion is lived,” “fash­ion is air trav­el,” and “fash­ion is the Fluevog store on the rain-swept Granville Street in Vancouver.”

Works Cited

Ander­son, Bene­dict. “Imag­ined Com­mu­ni­ties: Nationalism’s Cul­tur­al Roots.” The Cul­tur­al Stud­ies Read­er, edit­ed by Simon Dur­ing, Rout­ledge, 2007, pp 253–263.

Bobi­la, Maria. “Gucci’s Ani­mal of Choice For Its Fall 2017 Cam­paign Is a Cow.” Fash­ion­ista, Fash­ion­ista, 25 July 2017, fash​ion​ista​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​7​/​g​u​c​c​i​-​f​a​l​l​-​2​0​1​7​-​a​d​-​c​a​m​p​a​ign.

Bot­ton, Alain De. The Art of Trav­el. Pen­guin Books, 2002.

“Cos­mos Mete­or.” Fluevog Shoes, John Fluevog Boots & Shoes LTD, www​.fluevog​.com/​s​h​o​p​/​4​7​0​4​-​m​e​t​e​o​r​-​p​ink.

Fluevog Post. John Fluevog Boots & Shoes LTD, Spring/Summer 2016, Print.

Heb­di­ge, Dick. “Sub­cul­ture and Style.” The Cul­tur­al Stud­ies Read­er, edit­ed by Simon Dur­ing, 3rd ed., Rout­ledge, 2007, pp. 429–440.

Ho, Jonathan. “(Star Trek) Guc­ci Fall 2017 Cam­paign Goes Where No Fash­ion Brand Has Gone Before.” LUXUO, 3 Aug. 2017, www​.lux​uo​.com/​s​t​y​l​e​/​f​a​s​h​i​o​n​/​s​t​a​r​-​t​r​e​k​-​g​u​c​c​i​-​f​a​l​l​-​2​0​1​7​-​c​a​m​p​a​i​g​n​-​g​o​e​s​-​w​h​e​r​e​-​n​o​-​f​a​s​h​i​o​n​-​b​r​a​n​d​-​h​a​s​-​g​o​n​e​-​b​e​f​o​r​e​.​h​tml.

“Our Sto­ry – About Fluevog.” Fluevog Shoes, John Fluevog Boots & Shoes LTD, www​.fluevog​.com/​o​u​r​-​s​t​o​r​y​/​a​b​o​u​t​-​f​l​u​e​v​og/.

Rushdie, Salman. The Wiz­ard of Oz. British Film Insti­tute, 1992.

Siemens, Ele­na. Street Fash­ion Moscow. Intel­lect, 2017.

Siemens, Ele­na. The­atre in Pass­ing 2. Intel­lect, 2015.

Trib­ble, Mimi, edi­tor. Fash­ion Is… Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, 2014.

Urbina, Yessy. “Gucci’s Spring 2018 Cam­paign: An ‘Utopi­an Fan­ta­sy’.” Salute Mag­a­zine, Salute Mag­a­zine, 3 Jan. 2018, salutemag​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​1​/​0​3​/​g​u​c​c​i​-​s​p​r​i​n​g​-​2​0​1​8​-​c​a​m​p​a​i​gn/.

Warhol, Andy. The Phi­los­o­phy of Andy Warhol: (from A to B and Back Again). Har­court Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

“Weare­vers Danke.” Fluevog Shoes, John Fluevog Boots & Shoes LTD, www​.fluevog​.com/​s​h​o​p​/​2​1​3​6​-​d​a​n​k​e​-​b​l​ack.

Wen­ders, Wim. Once: Pic­tures and Sto­ries. Trans­lat­ed by Mar­i­on Kager­er, Schirmer/Mosel and D.A.P./Distributed Art Pub­lish­ers, 2010.