NEW YORK — Shoes are
having a 21st-century moment
as they’ve pushed from
mere accessory to the center
of the fashion stage.
Sexuality, social status,
fashion IQ ... the reasons for
our shoe obsession are many,
but one thing’s for sure:
More, and more avant-garde,
designers are taking on the
feet.
“There has been a big
emphasis on high designer
shoes in the past 10 to 12
years, so more women are
certainly willing to spend
more money on high-end
shoes, but there’s also been
a real focus on shoes as art
pieces,” said Colleen Hill,
assistant curator of accessories
for The Museum at the
Fashion Institute of Technology.
The museum went directly
to the source — a Who’s Who
of shoe designers and some
high-profile collectors — for
“Shoe Obsession,” an exhibition
that runs through April
13.
Outlandish beer heiress
Daphne Guinness lent some
of her favorites. So did jewelry
designer Lynn Ban, who
owns roughly 800 pairs and
says, “I’ve worn them all, at
least once."
The exhibition shows off
153 specimens, mostly from
this century, including Ban’s
silver-platform Chanels with
handguns for heels. (They
came with a warning against
packing them in carry-on
luggage when flying.) From
the eerie bone-white Exoskeleton
made of resin and
produced through 3-D digital
printing by Janina Alleyne
to the disco-ballish silver
sparklers without a heel
by Giuseppe Zanotti (also
Ban’s), nary a style is left
unrepresented by FIT.
Hill and Valerie Steele,
director and chief curator of
the museum, have co-written
a book, “Shoe Obsession,” to
accompany the exhibit. During
a recent walk-through,
the two spoke of designer
shoes as the new millennium’s
“It” bag, which has
not gone unnoticed by major
department stores.
The flagship Macy’s in
Manhattan expanded floor
space for shoes by 10 percent,
boasting 250,000 pairs.
Saks Fifth Avenue enlarged
shoe departments in about
a dozen stores around the
country, with the Manhattan
store’s department 40
percent larger, spanning the
entire eighth floor and hosting
the first Louis Vuitton
shoe shop within a department
store.
Shoes by established
designers and design houses
— Manolo Blahnik, Salvatore
Ferragamo, Roger Vivier,
Chanel, Prada, Christian
Louboutin — remain popular,
but quirky stars have arisen
as quickly as heels have gone
so high that 4 inches is the
new “low,” the two curators
said.
The new design generation?
Modernists Kei
Kagami, with art pieces that
take on an almost orthopedic
terror, and Noritaka Tatehana,
working in stamped
leather, spikes and tall toe
platforms absent a heel,
stand out in a strong contingent
from Japan.
Brazilian shoe designer
Alexandre Birman lent the
exhibit three pairs done in
painted reptile skin.
“Shoes have a psychological,
sociocultural and
seductive significance to our
culture, from the Hollywood
celebrity to the everyday
woman, which goes beyond
a materialistic obsession,” he
said in an email.
The centuries have
spawned many beautiful
shoes, but the masses joining
in a more recent phenomenon
known as the “Sex and
the City” effect continues to
ripple in fashion.
Shoes are so popular, in fact, that Hill cited recent
data noting the average
American woman owns nearly
twice as many shoes as she
did a decade ago — about 17
pairs.
“What we’re seeing in a
way is a kind of democratization
of the kind of phenomenon
that we saw in ‘Sex
and the City,’” Steele said.
“At first it was just sort of
some people who were really
obsessed with high-end
designer shoes. This has now
spread."
Shoes, she said, have
moved from accessories to
fashion’s main story “to BEING
the main story, in part
because designer clothes
have gotten so expensive. So
even if you’re spending $900,
$1,000 on a pair of shoes,
something insane, that’s less
than you’d be spending by
far than if you were getting
a dress or something, and
people seem to feel that it’s
more worth it."
Height, Steele said, “has
reached this great moment,”
when compared to a decade
ago. “We’ve gone about as
high as most people can walk
in shoes, unless you’re Lady
Gaga. That’s about 6 inches,
but some people can do
higher."
Ban is one of them.
“I can go maybe 10 inches,
but that’s, like, standing at
a cocktail party not moving.
Anything for fashion,” she
laughed.
A high toe platform to
match rear height remains
popular, but with Ban and
millions of other fashionistas,
“we’re starting to see
a new trend toward what
people are calling sexy
shoes, by which they mean
single-sole shoes instead of a
platform, so I think that implies
that the heel will get a
little bit less vertiginous, and
instead the emphasis will
be on interesting materials
and decoration, and different
shoe shapes,” Steele said.
There’s no way to categorize
popularity in shoes
today. There’s a range of
heights, shapes and embellishments
— feathers,
crystals, beads, spikes, human
hair made to look like
the tails of ponies, molded
and painted resins, painted
python. All are included in
the exhibition.
Linda Wells, editor in
chief of Allure magazine,
said in a New York Fashion
Week interview that
shoe trends are like fashion
trends in general — you can
find whatever you want:
pointy toes, stiletto heels,
high platforms, fancy flats,
more masculine shapes.
“Everyone likes buying
shoes. You don’t have to
take your clothes off or be a
model size to wear them,”
Wells said.
Overall, Steele said, “high
heels have really become the
prime symbol of erotic femininity.
However high it is,
but the concept of the high
heel, that’s really important.
It’s such a powerful trope for
women and for men."
