When we look at a persons shoes we get a sense for what they do, we can know what kind of situation or task they imagine they will become involved with. We have shoes for running, for work, to convey social caste in leisure.

These are visual language, and there is a lot to be conveyed here, but there is also a language of action in the shoe, in our choice we convey not only what we are doing, but affirming means of production. We are choosing how the shoe was made, interacting with someone and funding activity that ideally speaks to our vision of society.

This is a choice that is our right, and one that is limited by lack of use. We too often focus only on visual language, and so we have fewer companies to choose from, because it is easy for one producer to produce many visual forms.

Here are two leather soled short boots for the kind of people we are, those who would choose an expensive general item, rather than many cheap specialized items. We want a shoe suited to work, but also good looking, perhaps conveying respect for work, or the sentiment that we take pride in it’s aesthetics. This shoes classic form references the craftsman and the workshop, it’s construction methods speak of small, human scale industry, of good wages, of light and clean production, repairability, and reduced reliance on plastics.

Both are seeing a lot of popularity on the internet these days, and I hope it is a hard value that is driving people to want these things instead of a superficial desire to reference a labor and sustainability oriented image.

The first shoe is the whites semi dress boot.

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