contemporary world history meets fabulousity

I KNOW, I KNOW, IT'S WEIRD FOR BOYS TO BLOG ABOUT SHOES (BECAUSE CONVENTION DICTATES THAT WE MUST ONLY TALK ABOUT LFD/DOTA/MEGAN FOX/CARS/TECHNOLOGY/SHOOTING HOOPS/FIGURE SKATINGLOLJUSTKIDDING), BUT RIGHT NOW I'M STRESSED AND SCREWED UP SO UNHEALTHY AND FINANCIALLY UNSOUND DECISIONS CURRENTLY PREVAIL

SO - 

I SHALL PICK SHOES THAT MAKE GOOD POINTS OF DEPARTURE FOR THOUGHTS ABOUT VARIOUS THEMES/TOPICS IN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY IN THE VAIN HOPE OF RECONCILING ANXIETY WITH (WHATEVER SHADOW OF) PRODUCTIVITY:

Clarks Wallabees: I believe this shoe was crafted after the original desert boots that British soldiers wore. Desert... Middle East... Israel... Role of the British in the rise of 1st Arab Israeli War... Peel Commission... End of the British Mandate in Palestine... spasms. UN Partition Plan, Jewish lobby in the US, terrorist Zionist groups (example: blowing up of King David Hotel), Nasser, Sadat and Egypt. Also, the extension of the conflict, from a Arab-Israeli based one to a PA-Israeli one to a rejectionist PLO-Jewish Fundamentalism one (??? ok I guess that's pushing the limits of marxist history) Peace Accords: UN Resolution 242, 338. Camp David '78, Camp David '00, Oslo Accords gah. Armed conflict: '48,  '67, '73.

Because of the One-For-One philosophy advocated by TOMS, and the imagined poor it benefits, I'm going to loosely relate this to the rise of the Third World in the Global Economy. E.g. Latin American debt crisis, MNCs, the entrenchment of their developmental status by the BWS, Debt Forgiveness?, capital flight in Asia, Washington Consensus (2000) and the deepening of poverty (through cutting back government spending and agricultural protectionism in the North/West), growth rates of 2.5%

These Onitsuka Tigers are Japanese, so obviously it's going to remind me of the Rise (and Decline!) of the Japanese economy. "THE REASONS FOR ITS RISE LAID DOWN THE SEEDS OF FAILURE." DISCUSSSSSS. The Dodge Line after WWII (role of US and international circumstances i.e. the Cold War, Korean War), depoliticisation/pacifism and the concentration on economic development, Effectiveness of economic policies, PMs Yoshida, Ikeda, zaibatsu, keiretsu, low consumption rate, high savings, large amounts of liquidity for investment borrowing, bad loans and bursting of property bubble, changing Japanese demographic (and demand for services like healthcare), structural changes, rising cost of labour, rise of more competitive economies e.g. Eastern Europe, China. Random decontextualised examples: Mazda, Mistubushi, Sumitomo, Yasuda, Mitsui, etc.

Dr Martens are from Germany. Which calls to mind the German Question, and the Cold War! I need to stop screwing up essays about the Berlin Blockade.  Rise of the Cold War: Militarisation of the Cold War (NATO and the Warsaw Pact), before that, Political rivalry (Atlantic Treaty, Kennan Long Telegram, Riga Axiom, containment policies, Soviet Comecon and Cominform), Economic dimension (Atlantic Charter), misreading of political action, Iron Curtain speech etc. etc.

OK, this oxford by Tom Ford looks like it came from the cast of Mad Men, and knowing that the show is set in the 1960's, you need to talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Alternatively, I could link this to Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man, in which the Cuban Missile Crisis was briefly mentioned on a radio somewhere.) Extension of Cold War: Intensification of conflict from the Korean War, Castro, Khruschev, Kennedy, NSC 68, Jupiter Missiles in Turkey, IRBMs + Cuba = ICBMs, prelude to Détente, (but still the intensification of arms race and the stabilising of tensions)

After hearing about how these supremely awesome Pop Art-inspired Pumas were conceived (they borrowed from Roy Liechtenstein's graphic novel aesthetic), one can only appreciate their postmodernist deliciousness in relation to the end of the Cold War and the fall of stablising bipolar structures — the plurality and multiplicity of conflicts (localised or regional), asymmetric warfare (terrorism, 1993 WTC bombings) the blowing up of conflicts once contained by the Cold War (Afghanistan), Nuclear fears (fall of Soviet Union and the sudden creation of small, new, and poor states with nuclear capabilities), NPT (included most powers in 1992), Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1996), the rise and intensification of religious fundamentalism etc. etc.

I like how this strappy shoe is reminiscent of a straightjacket, in both colour and in form. This is much like a visual metaphor for Gorbachev's strapped-up situation in relation to the internal rot within the USSR (economic inefficiencies, debt and the Andropov Secret Report, New Political Thinking, Glasnost, Perestroika, Democratisation, Sinatra Doctrine, settlement of the Yalta question, Reagan and the Second Cold War as catalyst factors.

This avant-garde Marc Jacobs sneaker might go well with harem pants and an asymmetrical-cut, all-black salwar kameez. Hey, whaddya know? That happens to be traditional Indian dressing (from Punjab I believe — a cultural region straddling the India-Pakistan border, according to Wikipedia.) Speaking of the I-P conflict, one is reminded the Simla Accords, the Kashmiri Accords, the Kargil Nuclear Crisis, of which the core issues remained more-or-less constant but with evolving manifestations. Also, rise of BJP, state sovereignty issues, Desire For Revenge (dun dun dunnnnn), National Congress Party and Sheik Abdullah and Nationalism in Kashmir, Rajiv Ganhdi, Benezir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto etc. etc.

I should have recapped enough key words/anchoring events/concepts by now (but I can't draw the links up here.) After 11 AM tomorrow, I'm going to go book-shopping and indulge in the veiled imperialism that is Western coffee-culture!