Saturday, September 14, 2019

RM Williams resole with Vibram Cristy

Gather 'round kids, it's time to talk about A E S T H E T I C S.

So I had a customer come into the shop the other day with a very specific request. Vibram 4014 (the "Cristy" (or "Christy", I've seen it spelled both ways)) on his RM Williams. The customer gets what the customer wants.

Pics

So a few things before we get into it. Part of the welt had blown out. But look how clean that gemming is. Super easy to tie the welt back on. Then we just sew on a midsole like you would for a redwing or whatever and glue on the outsole. You still have the heel seat to deal with since RMWs are 270 welted but you just nail on that portion. Everything balanced out surprisingly well so it was a pretty easy job.

So dear reader, my question to you is, do you like it? Why or why not? Would you like it if you didn't know that it was an RMW or that the 4014 sole is typically used on a work boot? Do these extra-textual concerns color your judgement? Or does it simply offend your sensibilities. Does it not partake in the platonic form of the Chelsea boot and our failure to adequately categorize it shows up as disgust?. Maybe you do like it but in a post-modern way. It is playing with the concept of the Chelsea boot and thus turning the lens back on us, the stodgy traditionalists, forcing us to confront our biases.

Personally I can't decide. It does seem to surpass the sort of perfect unity of form and function that the RMW has and venture into the realm of the art object. Heidegger would say that it has become vorhandenheit, like when we break a hammer and suddenly become aware of the hammer as such, but in that moment the hammer loses its usefulness. Maybe I just wish they were all black 'cause that would look dope.



Submitted September 14, 2019 at 09:33AM by seattle_cobbler https://ift.tt/2O0lDB2

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