The attractiveness from a designer’s perspective (not a student’s as these probably wouldn’t make much sense yet)
1 they are functional and emotiona> l
2 they combine many different manufacturing techniques
4 their wearers generally care about their selection
5 they are one of the few relatively complex products that a single designer pretty much does on his or her own
6 there are many diverse functional performance problems tonsolve that vary by type
7 the marketplace so voraciously demands new designs that a designer can get a lot of product to market within a few years, > experiment and take risks (if you can get away with it) and quickly learn from your mistakes
8 you get to see people enjoying your work publicly and get to use it yourself
9 there is a wide accepted aesthetic range to play with
10 designing footwear is pretty fun in general
There are some interesting points in Yos answer. I wondered about that shoe design thing myself, as I belonged to the school kids drawing cars not shoes. But shoes catched up on attention during the 80ies. It was a trend fueled by sports.
Baseball and skating. (Mostly skating.)
In change to the 70ies when shoes had to be neglected to be cool they suddenly became a sought after and highlighted
accessory and that is what they still are today. I’d like to add to Yos list:
-
There are only two forms of adornment that a man is alowed to wear proudly without looking gay:
Shoes and watches. -
Shoes provide a means of self differentiation and self reflection to the customer as part of the wardrobe.
But most (young) men don’t care about their zippers and jeans as much as they care about their sneakers.
(trend)
The main widely accessable means of self representation used to be the car, but in urban invironments the prevalence of privately held cars deminishes. Many 15 - 25 year olds in todays growth markets do not own a car and even worse do not strive to own a car. ( A fact, that deeply worries the car companies, that now try to reach those with alternative offerings
like e-scooters.)
So for me the shrinking significance of car design within the design community is a further sign of a cultural shift,
that is determined by “world culture” becoming more diverse and less USA centric. ( Europe after world war II was
very focused on the US… and the car craze was part of it.)
yours mo-i