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23 October 2026 Shoes as Statements: Fashion Meets Art in Vienna
Quick Read
• Silvia Schneider and HUMANIC presented their new autumn/winter 2026/27 shoe collection, Female Empower-Walk, at Vienna's Künstlerhaus on 22 October.
A fashion launch in a historic art venueShoes can signal status, express personality or challenge expectations about how women should look and move. These ideas provided the starting point for Female Empower-Walk, the new autumn/winter 2026/27 collection by Austrian designer and television presenter Silvia Schneider and HUMANIC, presented on 22 October at Vienna's Künstlerhaus.HUMANIC is one of Austria's best-known traditional shoe retail brands, with roots dating back to the nineteenth century. The collaboration with Schneider places the collection within the established commercial shoe market, while the accompanying art competition adds an educational and cultural dimension. The venue was also part of the evening's historical context. The Künstlerhaus association was founded in 1861, and its building on Karlsplatz opened in 1868. In her welcoming address, Franziska Maderthaner, vice-president of the Künstlerhaus Vereinigung and a renowned Austrian painter, highlighted the significance of the institution and its continuing role as a meeting place for different artistic approaches. Five schools, five perspectivesStudents from five Austrian educational institutions received shoe samples from the collection and worked with gold as a key colour. Their task was to interpret the meaning of shoes for women through individual artistic concepts.The participating institutions were the Modeschule Hetzendorf in Vienna; HBLA Lentia, specialising in fashion and product management, in Linz, Upper Austria; the Higher Federal School for Business and Fashion in Klagenfurt, Carinthia; the Ferrarischule in Innsbruck, Tyrol; and the HTL Dornbirn, specialising in fashion and graphic design, in Vorarlberg. The projects approached the subject from different directions. Some focused on pop culture and feminism, others on strength, tradition or the relationship between clothing and personal identity. The competition jury included Franziska Maderthaner, artist Franz Josef Baur, creative consultant Wolfgang Reichl, gallery owner Isa Stein and HUMANIC product manager Marlene Ludwig. Hetzendorf wins with sculptural shoe charactersThe first prize went to Auftritt, a group project by eleven students from Vienna's Modeschule Hetzendorf, supervised by Adele Raczkövi. The students used papier-mâché to turn shoes into three-dimensional objects representing imagined female personalities.Their characters included the Seductress, the Narcissist, the Rebel, the Light-Footed One, the Mystic, the Classicist, the Comfortable One, the Nature Lover, the Unyielding One, the Humorous One and the Future-Oriented One. Rather than treating footwear merely as a functional accessory, the project used it to explore how women present themselves and how individual identities can be expressed through design. The range of characters also gave the installation an unusually broad stage presence. At the awards ceremony, held in the presence of Kevin Knabe, the new director of Modeschule Hetzendorf, the many sculptural interpretations made the winning project a collective statement rather than a single design exercise. From pop feminism to a reworked traditionThe second prize went to a five-member team from HTL Dornbirn for The Feminist Side of Singers Zara Larsson and PinkPantheress. Inspired by the musicians and their song Stateside, the students developed two contrasting concepts. Their work connected music and contemporary pop culture with questions of feminism and beauty standards. Maderthaner praised the thoughtful symbolism and the way the students translated their inspirations into two distinct designs.The third prize went to Marie Margreiter of the Ferrarischule in Innsbruck for Wrapped in Strength. Her design combined a sturdy black leather boot with a gold toe cap, a deconstructed denim covering, leather straps, delicate gold chains and traditional white fringe. The result resembled the starting point for a complete fashion look. The jury recognised the way the design reinterpreted traditional craftsmanship through contemporary materials and a message of female autonomy. Beyond the collection launchThe evening brought together people from fashion, art and other creative fields. Alongside the presentation and awards, the projects offered a glimpse of how emerging designers interpret established products through different cultural and social perspectives. For the fashion industry, such events can serve a purpose beyond presenting a new collection: they also bring students' work into contact with professionals who may be interested in new creative talent. In this respect, the competition connected a commercial footwear launch with an educational setting and the broader question of how fashion communicates identity.  |