What does shoe mean to you?
Independent Study
RISD Fall 2025
Guided by Franz Werner
Photography and Book design
What Does a Shoe Mean to You? explores the intimate relationship between shoes and our daily lives. Beyond their function as garments, shoes hold our bodies, meet the ground before we do, and quietly shape how we move through the world. Worn at the very end of getting dressed, they complete who we are, grounding identity in something both practical and personal.
The book invites readers to reconsider shoes not as fashion items or commodities, but as objects that accumulate meaning through use. Through photography, interviews, and close observation, the project examines how a shoe’s significance shifts depending on the individual who wears it. Routines, memories, culture, and movement are reflected in the form, wear, and choices surrounding shoes.
The publication combines documentary-style photographs with reflective writing and conversations with makers, revealing both personal and material narratives embedded in footwear. Attention is given not only to design and structure, but also to signs of wear, construction details, and physical traces left by the body.
What Does a Shoe Mean to You? positions the shoe as a quiet but powerful storyteller, inviting readers to see an everyday object as a reflection of identity, memory, and lived experience.