Sole Encounters: Reflections on the Feeling Fashion Podcast

In a recent episode of the Feeling Fashion podcast, I had the pleasure of discussing the complex relationships between people and their shoes with Dr. Ellen Sampson. We have crossed paths repeatedly over the past 15 years since our early PhD days, and both completed our Masters in Material and Visual Culture at UCL (albeit at different times), so this conversation felt particularly special. I've long admired Ellen's research and perspective, making this opportunity for an extended discussion all the more meaningful.

The conversation, thoughtfully facilitated by Dr. Adele Varcoe and researcher Dr. Julie Gork, explored themes of materiality, identity, and emotional attachment. As fellow members of the Footwear Research Network, Ellen and I examined how shoes work not just as functional objects but as holders of memory and meaning, bearers of cultural significance, and agents of transformation.

A central theme of our discussion focused on how shoes both make and are made by their wearers - physically through wear and symbolically through the accumulation of personal and social meaning. Ellen's work on the embodied experience of footwear provided fascinating parallels with my sociocultural analysis of how shoes mediate relationships between bodies, cultures, societies, and the environment.

What made this conversation particularly engaging was the dialogue that emerged between our research approaches. While Ellen's work explores the emotional and affective relationships between wearers and their shoes, my research extends this understanding into broader sociological and cultural contexts, examining implications for industry practices and sustainability. This interplay between the personal and the systemic, the emotional and the practical, opened up new ways of thinking about these relationships.

The podcast provided a unique chance to explore the relationships between materiality, memory, and meaning. Thank you to Ellen for being such an engaging and generous conversational partner. Thanks also to Adele and Julie for facilitating this discussion, which highlighted the importance of viewing footwear not merely as products or commodities but as essential elements in the intricate web of human experience and cultural significance.