The First Magic Act: Florsheim Shoes
"People were always trying to get me to change Michael's shoes.
"He should be wearing customs or designers," I heard often.
But to mess with Michael's Florsheims could be a career-ending move, and I learned that the hard way.
I was a novice when I joined the Bad Tour in Japan in 1987, but I knew a few things about my job description as a dresser. I was in charge of fit, function, and application, as well as the maintenance, of Michael's clothes. During and after shows, I'd hand wash and blow dry silk shirts and rhinestone socks. I'd apply rubbing alcohol to metallic belts, buckles, whatever other icings we put on the pieces that required a spit and sparkle after an aggressive performance. I'd sew seams back together or fix other types of wardrobe breakdowns. And, at the direction of management, I shined Michael's pair of creased, scuffed up, raggedy-looking Florsheim shoes. It was the least I could do. No superstar- or business man, for that matter- would dare be seen with such a mess on his feet.
Michael happened to see me sitting there in his hotel room putting a polish on like a shoeshiner in the middle of Grand Central Terminal.
"No! Don't touch my shoes." A wave of anxiety mixed with confusion made me go mute. I didn't know what to say. "Don't ever polish my shoes," Michael elaborated. He was angry. It was a side of him I had never seen, and my stomach bottomed out. He never raised his voice, but the combination of his hand gestures and inflection in his slowly pronounced words indicated that he meant business. Any time Michael got mad about something to do with his professional life, he never quipped. Instead he was like a parent explaining to a small child not only he had done something wrong, but why it was wrong. Simply telling me not to touch the fire was not the same as telling me because I could get burned. Michael wanted me to learn from this mistake. He explained, "The leather is worn the way I like it. And if you coat them in polish, the shoes will slip. If I fall and twist an ankle, we are all out of the job."
Before Michael could walk, he was feeling the beat. Michael told me that his mother, Katherine, recalls him imitating the oscillating movements of the washing machine when he was a small child. Michael had taught himself how to dance in Florsheims, and in his mind he feared that if he tried to dance in anything else, he would lose the magic in his steps. "These are the shoes that my family could afford and what I learned to dance in," he went on to tell me. "I don't care what you do to my clothes, just don't touch my shoes. These are my dance shoes. I love my shoes. Leave them alone."
Actually, I was allowed to touch them when I first took brand-new ones out of the box. With a razor blade I slashed the unscuffed leather soles, where the ball of the foot is placed. And because the rubber soles had traction, I replaced the rubber with dance leather, a smooth and slippery material that enabled Michael to slide along the stage. Traction was no friend to a moonwalker.
For the Captain EO movie in 1985, Michael had to dance in a space suit costume, and his Florsheims didn't fit with the theme. Reebok high-tops blended much better, but he wouldn't dance in them. So, he had the soles of the Reeboks cut out with a hacksaw to fit his Florsheim loafers inside.
Asking Michael to dance in a new pair of shoes, or even mess with the ones he had already broken in just right, was like asking a home run hitter to change his bat or a catcher to use a brand-new mitt. The shoes were sacred and represented yet another paradox that contributed to Michael's mystique. He could wear 18-karat gold leg guards and drape his furniture in Austrian crystal rhinestones, but don't give Michael a pair of designer loafers. They couldn't Moonwalk, or tap dance, or stand on toe, or spin blurrily for nine revolutions with the precision of a toy top. The Florshiems, however, could do all that and more. On tour I had two pairs of broken-in Florsheims that I was so paranoid about losing, I slept with a pair beneath my pillow every night."
- Michael Bush, "The King Of Style: Dressing Michael Jackson"
This took me ages to type so be grateful XD
