Splendid Slippers
 Beverley Jackson
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 1997 Ten Speed Press Berkeley CA USA
  ISBN: 0898159571

1000 Years of An Erotic Tradition. A deeply respectful & highly personal exploration of the generations of Chinese girls & women who have tottered through life on broken & bound "lotus" feet encased in exquisitely embroidered tiny shoes & slippers.

This was a difficult book for me to read, beautiful color & evocative photographs, notwithstanding. It's difficult because of its premise - a 1000 years of little girls being tortured for an adult ideal of beauty - the golden lily - 3 l/2inch long feet.

Doesn't matter which gender thought it up or which did the binding before the cartilage developed into bone. At six years of age, no girl wants to experience that much pain for that long a time however, at that age most girls are awefully obedient! One of their duties was to help make a pair of shoes to offer their future mothers-in-law. The understanding being that the smaller the shoes the more willing the girl was to take orders & the more endurance she had - both sterling qualities.

In Splendid Slippers Beverley Jackson has taken an unwanted gift given her as a child & brought to life a degree of compassion, understanding & honor to all those nameless generations of women who endured this disfigurement. By their skills in slipper-making & embroidery, these women created things of beauty to encase the bindings around their feet, which were never seen naked by husband or lover.

To remind us of the why of foot-binding, Beverley Jackson not only tells a tale, she recounts a lot of history, both social & sexual. Now that hadn't occurred to me! Very interesting the physique of a woman with bound feet & feet are, we're told repeatedly, much, much more erotic than faces. Must have been, look at all the Hans born over the centuries!

Since 1949 women with bound feet have been stigmatized as a symbol of the enduring domination of the decadent upper classes. Beverley Jackson's interest, her caring & deference, have brought these lonely survivors a degree of praise & recognition at the end of their lives.

Splendid Slippers is a sincere anthropological & artistic MUST. Beverley Jackson, a modern product of these United States, 10-B sized feet clad in athletic shoes; a head of long blond waves & a statuesque form draped in black sweat shirt & pants, stands beside a spunky diminutive elder in Tienanmen Square & the difference in their feet is breathtaking.

When Beverly Jackson shows photos of her collection of Splendid Slippers to these indomitable women, who have teetered & tottered through their lives in a gait others have raved at as being as if borne upon water or stepping from one lotus blossom to another, these dwindling few invisible martyrs, weep & smile at the beauty before them & at their own beautiful memories.

By the time I came to the end of Beverley Jackson's book I found I had become accustomed to the sight of bound feet. Did, in fact, find myself momentarily displeased at the sight of a woman with big feet. Yes, the few available photos of naked feet are stunning & I felt my own feet cringe as my brain told me what I was seeing. & yes, the shoes are incredibly elegant, beautiful, poignant, whimsical. Certainly worthy objets d'art - especially those made by the women themselves.

It is amazing to see the less wealthy women who also had their feet bound & who survived the atrophying of calf muscles, climb up & down temple steps or mountainsides to a place of pilgrimage; amazing to see them standing tall, together, talking. The sight of their feet from the side is astonishing & I do see the idealized beauty. Remarkable!

What is different is that a girl who was given a gift, grew up to bring to the world a unique collection of women's work to cover their "lily" feet & bring beauty to their world. Truly, the adage about beauty being painful applies to this custom.

A comment about the beauty of this book: - Larry Kunkel's photography of the author's collection is magnificent as too Brad Greene's gifted interior design. Veronica Randall is to be congratulated in seeing the deeper potential of such an effort & in doing so truly paid homage to the wonderful women who made & wore such Splendid Slippers.

Lest We Ever Forget!
(06/12/99)

Rebecca