Review of Avant-Garde Concept in Footwear Research and Design and Application Trends

Whether originating from a deliberate intention or emerging from subconscious, spontaneous doodling, design concepts perform the crucial role of demonstrating the vision of a final product. Even though academic discourse on design concepts is prevalent in all fields of design, the same cannot be said about footwear design. Academic discussion about footwear design concept is usually rooted in comfort and functionality. This paper aims to enhance the academic conversation on footwear design concepts by exploring the avant-garde concept in footwear design, its impact and significance. Avant-garde describes a French medieval military lexicon that literally translates to vanguard, or advanced guard, referring to the frontline of the army. However, the applicative meaning of the term is an intellectual, artistic and cultural movement characterized by experimental, radical and unorthodox approaches to the arts. Therefore, in actuality, for a product or idea to be considered avant-garde is to dwell outside of the established norms and confines of a discipline. Despite the widespread usage of the terminology in contemporary fashion circles, academic discourse on specifically named avant-garde footwear is rather sparse. This study thus sets out to fill out this academic gap by first discussing the concept of avant-garde in fashion generally, some notable avant-garde designers/artists and their contributions, important avant-garde concepts in footwear design and finally the areas of avant-garde footwear applications. The study contends that although avant-garde fashion and for that matter footwear is thought to satisfy a specific niche, its impact is significantly observable in the trends of mainstream fashion.