David Lynch had asked me to draw some shoes for his exhibit at the Cartier Foundation. He painted some of them to display in a cage. I asked him in turn to photograph some , that I would design for that reason.
David Lynch is one of the greatest living director. As his movies are very cryptic, I wanted some fetishist shoes with cryptic fantasy codes.
Many people only see a walking accessory in shoes . Even though there are shoes to walk and some to swim with. And also some for sex. If there is but one object in a woman's wardrobe that is a fetish element, it's the shoe. Even without heel, it's like a totem.
It's a cultic object that calls for rituals. I had plans for sculpture-shoes designed less to be worn than to bring out the most beautiful part of the feet : the camber and the neck of the foot.
David Lynch gave me his agreement right away. He was envisioning a sofa, long stem roses, a lamp and a girl.
He saw what I didn't. He already had an image in mind. The shoot was complete in two days in Paris. To my surprise, David worked like a choreographer. He would take a general shoot, then a close-up, then a detail close-up.
He had the enthusiasm of a student of beaux arts, and the religious intensity of a Pollock or Picasso.
His images are gifted with a picturesque quality and remind me of a Bellmer or a Bacon, but also Boldini in the quality of the flesh. The motions and overprintings are usually part of his movies, but there was some cambers that seemed to explode into flames. Even though the shoes never left the focus point.

David had one demand : no "bones". The models are Nouka and Baby and are dancers at the Crazy Horse.As a want-to-be be fetishist, I chose them for their grace and beauty, but also for their camber.
They wore with natural ease those impossible to wear shoes. Their very white skin with dark eyes and shimmering mouth were in tune with Lynch's esthetic, who finally might have a fetish strike : Isabella Rossellini's lacerated body in Blue Velvet, or this tenses atmosphere where the blood is never shred.
Or also those military  straight folds curtains that seem to be in salute and that I rediscovered  for the shoot. The sofa turned into a Viennese bordello chair , signed Adolf Loos, crushing a carnivorous plant colored rug. David Lynch, as usual, made it a " stage dressed with shadows".