Yesterday the Despotic Queen was engaging a potential client with my wily charms when they enquired about my footwear editorial for KAREN magazine. “What would you like to know?” I asked, “What was your concept or theme?” they responded.
The inspiration for the shoot came from Bernhard Wilhelm’s SS08 collaboration with Francois Sagat. Wilhelm and Sagat have collaborated many times but it was this infamous image of Sagat inflagranta with the exhaust pipe of a car that set things in motion.
WARNING THE FOLLOW IMAGE (WHILST HOT) IS NSFW.
Time hasn’t done much by way of dampening the
controversy surrounding this image – it’s divisive and hardcore, but then so is
Wilhelm. At the time there was so much speculation about this image, many
people (wrongly) suggested the act of ‘Dogging’ inspired the image. I’ve driven
past a Tesco car park at 2am and certainly didn’t see many sloppy bodied middle
class men romancing their exhaust pipes, so I Googled “f*cking exhaust pipes”.
As one would expect, Google spat out plenty of stomach churning muck but it was the term “objectùm-sexuality’ that caught my eye. Googling ‘objectùm-sexuality’ I hit the freakum jackpot.
Thankfully the objectùm-sexuality website explained the term “We love objects and many of us in an intimate way and this feeling is innate. Objectùm-sexual love comes for most in a similar awakening as other sexualities at the start of puberty. This is often followed by an acute awareness that we do not relate to peers due to the source of the projected feelings. Often objectùm-sexual people feel outcast or pressured by mainstream sexuality, with a helpless feeling that we cannot change what comes so naturally.” Hello! This is the kind of freakum that gets the Despotic Queen moist, but the more I investigated the ‘objektophile’, the less freakum it became. Much to my disappointment not every objektophile wants to bang the exhaust pipe of a car or marry the Berlin Wall.
Even when you remove the sexual relationship between human and object it’s a dark subject, most objektophile’s are in love with an object and obsessed by its beauty and form. Somehow, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that a discerning footwear consumer experiences a similar type of love/obsession. For those shoe lovers who ride the A-train, a shoe isn’t merely something that completes your outfit; it’s a wearable piece of art that defines your existence and makes your soul sore.
For the editorial Emmanuel and I wanted to ‘tastefully’ explore the concept of ‘objectùm-sexuality’ and shoes. A simple shopping bag with the print of a shoe became the focus of desire, sexual awakening and love, because Imelda think there's a little Objektophile in all of us. After explaining this to the ‘potential’ I doubt Imelda will be booked for said job, but it does allow me to segue into these shoes.
Imelda’s good friend, the Manila based blogger Giancinephile, first introduced Imelda to Mr Hare and since then I’ve been obsessed. Not a day passes without me thinking about these stingray shoes. I’ve been distracted to the point of no return. I'm a despot in love. While Imelda’s known to be a hot-blooded despot, I won’t be getting my objektophile on but I’d almost sell Yum Yum to the Gypsies.
Oops, I must have self medicated again because Mr. Hare has BLOG, go say 'hi' and tell the Despotic Queen sent you.
