Evening pumps

Unable to find the type of merchandise they wished to sell in their New York shop, Susan Bennis and Warren Edwards began designing shoes in 1973 out of necessity. The partners were known for their stylish but comfortable and wearable shoes, often bringing elements of contemporary culture into their designs. The exuberant counter-culture aesthetic of Punk rockers was working its way into mainstream fashion in the early 1980s through provocative designers such as Stephen Sprouse, Vivienne Westwood, and Jean-Paul Gaultier. The combination of graffiti-like tie-dyed and splattered effects in the textile of these shoes with a very lady-like pump style demonstrates how the gritty, anti-establishment, Do-It-Yourself aesthetic had, by this time, been co-opted and neutered by fashion.