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Welcome
Welcome to UBC Library's Fluevog Shoes guide.
You can use the guide to stay informed about events, visit our displays, and find library materials about Fluevog Shoes. Our two part exhibition, “50 Years of Sole: A History of Fluevog: Honouring a Vancouver Icon” will take place from November 20 to December 24, 2019.
For more information, visit the UBC Library's Rare Books and Special Collections Fluevog Shoes page.
Fluevog: 50 Years of Unique Soles for Unique Souls by
An homage to wild and whimsical John Fluevog shoes and their free-spirited fans, written by the cult shoe designer and featuring lush photography, graphics, and hand-drawn illustrations. Colorful and quirky, Fluevog shoes have graced the feet of celebrities such as Madonna, Jack White, and Lady Gaga, as well as legions of lifelong fans who consider themselves more a community than mere customers. Known for cheeky slogans such as "no, you're weird" and the message engraved on the soles of their iconic Angel shoes: "Resists alkali, water, acid, fatigue and Satan," the Fluevog brand is a celebration of individualism, creativity, and humor. These values flow directly from the heart of John Fluevog himself, who says that his mission in business and in life is to help people "walk in spirit." To mark his fiftieth year in the shoe business in 2020, John Fluevog has penned a love letter to Fluvogers everywhere in FLUEVOG: 50 Years of Unique Soles for Unique Souls. In this full-color, visually rich coffee table book, Fluevog gives fans and fashionistas a behind-the-scenes look into the brand's evolution and his own creative process. With his unmistakable jovial warmth, Fluevog reveals the ups and downs of the business's evolution and his own personal triumphs and heartbreaks with disarming candor and intimacy. Echoing the eclectic style of Fluevog's whimsical and witty zine-style catalogs over the years, the book features Fluevog's own design sketches and handwritten messages, blended with stories, graphics, and previously unpublished photographs from the brand's archives. The book is a fascinating peek inside the colorful mind of the iconoclastic designer, while also paying homage to the wild and beautiful John Fluevog shoes themselves.
ISBN: 1928055532Publication Date: 2019-11-05
UBC Fluevoger profiles
As part of the Fluevog Shoe Series, 5 UBC community members were interviewed about their Fluevog shoes. Check out UBC's Small Business Accelerator Program's blog to read about our very own Fluevoggers. Read the profiles to find out when they got their first pair of Fluevogs, how many pairs they own as well as interesting stories behind their Fluevogs.
Special Thanks
A heartfelt thank-you to all those who made this exhibition possible, particularly Stephen Bailey and Jodie Sentes from John Fluevog Shoes, artist Robert Chaplin, and Diane Kennedy of Cherry Velvet. And many thanks, of course, to John Fluevog, who has inspired so many over his fifty-year career.