Red shoes are daring for a reason. They have a long and rich symbolic history that goes beyond surface appeal. The Red Shoes I Wore is a media storytelling project about femininity, eroticism, and power in footwear. Drawing on personal history and interviews with women about a special pair of red shoes that they own, I explore how our relationship with an iconic object is a reflection of our relationship to society.

Through poetry, animation, and photography, I bring to light some of the untold, intimate stories of womens’ lives; re-framing core ideas about vanity and piety in H C Andersen’s classic tale The Red Shoes and shifting the focus to the joy of attraction and showing off.