Gazelle JO COLLEY

Jo Colley Gazelle

These trainers with their history and their semiotics the three stripes marking time giving context as differentiation from other similar footwear, worn daily now, footsteps as metronome of pandemic. My mother’s open-toed sandals signifying 1950s signifying housewife belonging to a body always open always receptive. Where the feet take us: to turn this way or that, the choices available to us in our own letterbox of time and culture. To stand still. Through electric blue platform boots signifying spaceman signifying buccaneer signifying Wonderwoman. Alas seen as available seen as inappropriate seen as pantomime in the eyes of a series of beholders. The man jogging past me, his footwear bearing the three stripes, a brother in choice, his calf muscles defined and inked with a symbol I can’t interpret. Through Doc Marten boots signifying masculine signifying skinhead signifying opposition signifying lesbian. The signs misread misinterpreted misleading ms-leading. Workwear flats and kitten heels worn through decades in subservience in pursuit of position in conformity of necessity. Signifying nothing. The single pair of Jimmy Choo’s at the back of the wardrobe in their soft lilac bag, signifying sell out, signifying the road not hobbled down.