If I were looking for an example of recuperation, I think it safe to say using Marilyn’s image, in our time, is a fine example of trying to resuscitate sales through nostalgia. What made Marilyn Monroe’s or Elizabeth Taylor’s image relevant in Warhol’s day was that these iconic images represented a female paradigm. I just don’t see the same paradigm in today’s world. Since the pop tartish day of Warhol, we have seen the idealized female image of the 60′s give way to a multitude of other kinds of stylized glamour such as Punk, emaciated models (Edie), Grunge, Corporate, Butch and so on.

As for the shoe gazing point of this conversation, I can highly recommend an alternative to Nike’s recuperating of Monroe …it comes in the form of deconstruction. Instead of the wanton desire of Nike profiteering, I give you Sylvie Fleury’s “Mondrian Boots”. Fleury undermines the Nike posturing gesture which tries to profit from the passive nature of popular populism by way of the passive nature of outdated iconography. On the other foot Fleury’s profound iconoclastic statement kicks the patriarch where it hurts most; to the groin of patriarchy itself; or to the history of the male domination as the purveyors of taste itself.

http://www.installationart.net/Chapter5Dissociation/dissociation06.html