GILES SHEPHERD
I Wish I Was A Real Boy
July 2026
recognised in the world. From birth, structures and scripts guide this orientation. These shoes ask what happens at the moment we recognise our disorientation and allow ourselves to fall out of line.
Developed using traditional shoemaking techniques and under the external mentoring of Alectra Rothschild, each pair manipulates balance differently. Some place the wearer in a prolonged lean: not quite horizontal or vertical, but somewhere in between. A slow falling.Others fix the foot at a right angle or force the body to kneel. As the body reaches its tipping point, the structures that usually orient it become visible.
Bandages, braces, scaffolding and tensioned supports combine with technical elements from corsetry and sportswear. Through this language of maintenance, the shoes ask how identities are constructed, maintained and potentially undone.
Developed at Schoenenkwartier Waalwijk