Our third IWD story comes from Priscila Winckler, a footwear designer with over twenty years of experience across global and Australian brands. Priscila brought her Adidas sneakers to the workshop: shoes that had carried her through an extraordinary personal transition, from a fast-paced career in Bangkok to early motherhood and a new life in Melbourne. As someone accustomed to making shoes rather than unmaking them, her reflections on deconstruction, materials, and circular thinking offer a rare insider perspective on what it might mean to design differently.

Our second IWD story comes from Annalise Gehling, a school teacher, maker, and gardener. Annalise brought her beloved brown Birkenstocks to the workshop, worn-out from years of everyday use, with soles that had become little more than rubber socks. Instead of the bin bag that would once have been their fate, they became Birk: a hand puppet with a message and ambitions of his own (watch this space!).

To mark International Women's Day, we’re launching a new series of stories from participants in the This Is Not a Shoe workshop, held at Pennie Jagiello's studio at Abbotsford Convent as part of the PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2026. We begin with Emma Stenhouse, proud Ngarrindjeri woman, artist, weaver and early childhood educator, whose story of transformation, through her shoes and beyond, opens this celebration of extraordinary women.

Worn solidly through Melbourne's lockdowns - the world's longest - these UGG boots symbolise both isolation and the comfort of home during an extraordinary time. Purchased by her husband six years ago, they became Alexandra Sherlock's constant companions while pregnant with her second child, born in July 2020 just as mask mandates began. Holes worn through sheepskin marked time spent mostly indoors. Deconstructed into a hat, necklace, and earrings with Pennie Jagiello, they escaped landfill to begin a new life.

Developed by Bared Footwear's Millie Richards, these camel-coloured Mary-Janes mark a career milestone: successfully removing petroleum-based materials from footwear construction. The truly innovative work is hidden inside, invisible from the outside. When their bio-material supplier filed for bankruptcy shortly after launch, the shoes became a reminder that sustainable infrastructure remains fragile. Rather than archive them as a "moment," deconstruction makes their hidden innovation visible and keeps the progress they represent active in the world.

Two pairs of secondhand Vans slip-ons: Sky's classic checkerboard pair from year 8, and Vinnie's leopard print pair, bought after years of him slopping around in his big sister's oversized shoes. Contemporary jeweller Pennie Jagiello kept both pairs to teach her students about material transformation. When placed side by side, the size difference became a visible marker of childhood growth - siblings measuring themselves against each other, even now.

Purchased in the 1940s in Belfast before a young Irish woman's visit to the Scottish Highlands to meet her fiancé's family, these dancing shoes carry decades of reels and ceilidhs. They fit Joan's daughter Siriol perfectly, preserving the exact shape of her mother's feet. But years of storage have left the leather brittle and cracked. Now that both the shoes and Siriol's dancing days are behind them - is it time for the shoes to have a new life as something more wearable to preserve Siriol’s connection with her mother? Story to be continued...

From a Brunswick teacher's worn-out Bared sneakers to the centrepiece of a footwear circularity exhibition in 2026, Annalise's shoes chart the evolution of the 'This is Not a Shoe' project. Rescued from hard rubbish in 2023, deconstructed into artwork by Alexandra Sherlock for Melbourne Fashion Week, 2025, and transformed into wearable accessories by contemporary jeweller Pennie Jagiello for the 2026 PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival Independent Program, these gold sneakers embody the project's core belief: circularity is a pathway to creativity and innovation, not shame.