Perfect Fit: Creative Work in the Global Shoe Industry

"Much of what we see and imagine in the high-profile world of luxury shoes is all glamour--stylish men and women scouting and displaying trends we never imagined but rave over once discovered. But a shoe is a commodity, and the elite world of fashion design must work hand-in-glove with the factories that produce innovative footware. In The Global Shoe, Claudio Benzecry gives us an in-depth look at the shoe industry, showing how all the people who contribute to shoe production, from jet-setting trend spotters to factory floor laborers, are engaged in the enterprise of fashion design, and that even the most logistical types of knowledge contribute to this creative act. First are the trendspotters, who make use of expensive shoe trend databases. Then come the designers, who fly around the world buying as many shoes as they can before sketching up new designs inspired by these fashions. Top candidates are sent, along with detailed instructions about materials, to China so that a prototype can be made. But that's not the end of the story. Once a prototype has been made, it has to be tested on real feet. Enter the fit girl. These are women with just the right size and shape feet who test and model shoes. They are far more powerful than you would imagine, however. A shoe design cannot be approved if a fit model declares a shoe too uncomfortable. Only after they've given the stamp of approval does a shoe go on to production. Working with designers, the fit girls and factory managers strategize about how to edit a design to get the fit, materials, and look just right. Ultimately, Benzecry uncovers that the global production of commodities is not so divided as we usually think, with the intellectual labor of design taking place in the first world and the manual labor of production in the developing world. Rather, the work of making a shoe from start to finish requires a global movement of ideas and expertise"--
The Perfect Fit shows us how globalization works through the many people and places involved in making women’s shoes. We know a lot about how clothing and shoes are made cheaply, but very little about the process when they are made beautifully. In The Perfect Fit, Claudio E. Benzecry looks at the craft that goes into designing shoes for women in the US market, revealing that this creative process takes place on a global scale. Based on unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, The Perfect Fit offers an ethnographic window into the day-to-day life of designers, fit models, and technicians as they put together samples and prototypes, showing how expert work is a complement to and a necessary condition for factory exploitation. Benzecry looks at the decisions and constraints behind how shoes are designed and developed, from initial inspiration to the mundane work of making sure a size seven stays constant. In doing so, he also fosters an original understanding of how globalization works from the ground up. Drawing on five years of research in New York, China, and Brazil, The Perfect Fit reveals how creative decisions are made, the kinds of expertise involved, and the almost impossible task of keeping the global supply chain humming.