Eye-wateringly pointed toes. Towering spike heels. Sexy shoes are back - and they've never looked more deadly !!!!
Sculpted into wicked points and elevated on devilishly tall heels, the shoe shape for the season - the latest thing to earn fashion's favourite sobriquet 'must-have' - has arrived. The glossies will pinpoint the best, the High Street will replicate them - and women? Well, women will be hooked, probably against their better judgment.
Impossible to walk in? Perhaps. But these shoes are looking good. And, as only high stilettos can, they are making legs look damn good, too.The basic styling of the new killer heel is universally flattering.
Give shoes a low vamp (the bit where the shoe upper covers the toes) to slim the ankle, a high heel to force the calf muscle to tighten for a leaner line, and a toe shape that is pointed (but not to silly, winkle-picker lengths) and you give legs a rather lovely lengthening effect.
Look at the way barefoot models always seem to pose, somewhat unnaturally, pointing the balls of their feet down to emulate the effect of a foot in heels. It's how legs - and not just model legs - look their best. All sharp angles and narrow tips, the newest heels fulfil all the above criteria and combine a dangerous elegance to boot. This provides a very different appeal from the high shoe of choice over the past few seasons; the platform.
While this found favour with women who appreciated its kindly promise of extra height and comfort, combined with a reassuringly stride-friendly clunkiness, the new shoe comes in a shape that men understand. Give men the choice between a weighty platform and a pair of hazardously high spiky heels and there is no hesitation.
The latter are man-traps (surely the reason that at the Christian Louboutin's shoe sanctuary, there is inevitably a man loitering, uncomfortable but intent on buying sexy heels for someone special). The antithesis of the good-girl ballerina slipper - that easy, round-toed style that has ruled the High Street for the past four years - the shape of shoe that stalked autumn/winter catwalks brings to mind the fabulously pointy shoes of the late Fifties and late Eighties. While the new heels might not look so friendly as a blunt toe or a platform, they are infinitely more chic. After some of the fairly hideous shoes-as-sculpture that we have seen recently - where ugly heels, carved details and mad proportions have become mainstream - the return to a more classic allure may come as something of an aesthetic relief. Of course, some women have never worn anything else.
Of course, the shoes do not exist in a vacuum. They work with the new season’s clothes; catwalks full of austere, grown-up fashion, with lots of stark, covered-up shifts, rigorous lines and a great many high, puritan, necklines. When the designers obliterate all obvious sex appeal from the clothes, it leaves little choice; sex must exude from a shoe. Ergo, these are powerfully seductive.
As ever, when fashion decides to revisit an item, the style is subtly but irrevocably changed. The trend moves on. And that is probably never truer than at this moment because, according to the jungle drums, fashion has lost its obsession with It-bags. The It-shoe is about to have its day. So this won’t be about an Imelda Marcos-style weakness for hoarding pretty shoes. This will be about owning the item of footwear that says it all — no matter what.
It-shoes will be special in every way; they will pack a punch, make a distinctive fashion statement and, in keeping with the It-bag phenomenon, probably be significantly more distinctive and expensive than any others you have ever owned.
Will people stump up hundreds and thousands the green paper for It-shoes, in the same way that they did for It-bags? Perhaps the change of focus from bags to shoes is actually a response to the leaner times. (Hmm!!). Maybe focusing on shoes makes sense. We all actually have to wear shoes, and that’s not the case with a handbag. We do talk about cost in terms of ruppees-per-wear. A pair of Christian Louboutin’s heels will be more comfortable to wear than less well-made shoes that don’t, for instance, have the support and the cushioning pads under the feet. You will want to wear them more often, and that makes a difference.And when you are looking for innovation and you want something different, something like the pointy stiletto shoe-boot from Golden Goose alternate that we will be stocking in September, it can cost more.
