Miror shoes - well kind of

I've had a fascination with mirror shoes since I first spotted these bbys in ...well some time ago:  http://www.solestruck.com/andreia-chaves-invisible-shoe-mirror/index.html , but evidently they are out of my league (sadly). So I decided to make my own.

I planned everything. I had a pair of old ballerina shoes that I intended to secure on wooden platform soles (that I would make out of super light wood) and glue broken mirrors with my newly acquired super glue E6000. Dealing with the lack of time and money (wood can be really expensive), I have found an alternative.

I used a pair of old shoes. Vagabond - I dare to say that these are the most comfortable pair of shoes I own. they fit like a glove and they really feel more like slippers than shoes. Well I have worn them so much that I have managed to make a hole in the sole and made the shoe almost fall apart. I decided to bring them back to life by giving them a new sole (this has yet to happen), fixing anything that could be fixed (gluing parts of the sole back on) and adding drama with my mirror equivalents - old CDs.

First I broke the CDs in a box, so parts of them didn't get thrown all over the room. Then I separated the shiny and the transparent layer and got to work. It was all about matching the right pieces together to achieve a mosaic look. As mentioned I have used my new favorite glue E6000 which really glues anything to anything ... for good.

the shoes really only came to life when exposed to direct sunlight and I think the CDs have had an even better effect than the mirrors would, because of their rainbow like reflections. I am really pleased with how this project turned out and will be doing more CD DIYs in the future.

DAY 20

Here we go again with experimentation, this time with shoes. Today, the third years have gone to the theatre to watch a Slovene drama by Ivan Cankar, Kralj na Betajnovi.
I already knew, in the morning, that I wanted to wear heels, I just couldn't decide on a pair. Excluding the ones I couldn't or didn't want to wear, I was left with my killer leather boots and my ( I'm not sure how to call them), thick-heeled-bitofplatform-simple-black-laceup shoes.
Because of the colour of my sweater, I thought of a fabric I had had lying around my house for about 2 years now. It was originally bought to make an Alice Madness Returns costume (its a computer game, and it's really pretty, if you haven't yet, CHECK IT OUT! :D). Anyhow I never ended up making the costume.
My initial idea included complicated pattern-making and sewing, but after a couple of minutes of staring into the shoes, I just went with my gut and chose a simple, yet still effective, option. I cut (actually ripped - some fabrics only need a small cut, and than if you pull 2 parts apart, it will rip in a perfectly straight line) 2 strips. 7 cm wide and 120 cm long (standard fabric). Since I was working with 100% polyester, all I had to do was warm up the sides of the strips with a lighter to prevent loose threads. Then I wrapped them around the heel of the shoe and my ankle, tied a bow in the back and...they were ready. I combined them with black leggings, a short fitted black dress - that in this case functioned as a skirt, pink-ish pullover, dark blue leather jacket and dark blue shoulder-strap bag.

I dressed up as a wall

First, let me explain what pust is. It’s a holiday that represents the end of winter and the arrival of spring. Its dependant on the date of Easter, but every year we have the pust-Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday. People dress up in costumes, a lot of different mask festivals take place, and children go around houses for candy… It’s similar to Halloween, but it is celebrated for a different reason. The most recognizable, Slovenian pust mask is kurent. In the city of Ptuj, men dress up in traditional costumes, made out of sheepskin, with lots of heavy cow-bells hanging around their waist and a special head piece with a big red tongue and two colorful horns. They jump around, producing loud noises in order to scare the winter away.

Other people however dress up in different costumes for fun or just because they can. Well the latter would be me. When I was in London for a week in February, I bought this simple short sleeveless white shirt with a Banksy print and a pair of 16 cm high night-walks (heels without an actual heel). Well when the time of pust was approaching, and idea of me being a wall with graffiti (the shirt) popped into my head… And I really wanted to show off my shoes and not be too scary (with the shoes on I was almost 195cm tall).

The first thing I did, was transform a pair of my old white pants from a bell-like shape, to a more modern kind of tight-jeans look. I then took a sharpie and started drawing on the pattern of a bricked wall. In the beginning I wanted to use acrylics, but when I tried them on the actual fabric, it broke when folded and it just didn’t look good. The second idea I had, was using sandpaper for old or damaged bricks, but in the end I just went with more unified less costumy look (so I can wear the pants on a normal day sometime). The sharpie didn’t last long so I switched to an alcohol based marker. I was drawing from top to bottom, so even when my marker was already dying it slowly faded to a lighter shade, that didn’t break up the look of the pants. The whole process took about 3 and half hours to complete.

For my makeup I decided to go with a simple version, because I didn’t want to overdo it and take away from the shoes. I painted my face white with regular local store face paint, no eye makeup, and then colored my lips black. It was actually totally black only on the edges, towards the middle it faded into dark red. My hair was in a tight bun with some of the paint going over my hairline, unifying the look of the painted face. First picture from myschool site.

 

I think my look worked. It was original and I really had fun planning, making, and in the end, wearing it to school. I did turn some heads especially with my height. But sadly not many people recognized Banksy’s graffiti even though, it was the main inspiration for my look.

BONUS: My sister got dressed in a skeleton costume. Everything except the gloves has been painted by me, using acrylics for the clothes and face paint and regular makeup for the face

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