Fetish Sandals Candid Camera

Heels on Exhibition

You might not know that tomorrow Castello Sforzesco in Vigevano opens the exhibition "The Stiletto heel: charm and seduction". Even for those who aren't maniac like us, it could be an opportunity to visit the Castle, the Pinacoteca and the permanent exhibition of the International Museum of Footwear "P. Bertolini", the only Italian public institution dedicated to the history of most famous Made in Italy object.
The exhibition has already been widely echoed in the press and blogosphere, here, here, here, here, here, and also here, but there are many other links, in fact the topic has become a cult at all levels.
Nobody, it seems, has mentioned the exhibition web site, with some nice pictures, such as Sofia Loren with Ferragamo, and some models like this here by Louboutin.
The exhibition remains open until May 25th, maybe I'll pay a visit.

Don't Throw Your Boots Away

These two girls are evidently taking designers' current suggestions too seriously. If you think your pointed toes stiletto boots are out of fashion, hold on, they will be back en vogue soon, indeed, they have never gone.

Beware the eBay Auction

Those auctions and shops on eBay are always interesting and can provide real rarities and good deals. The link boxes changing in turn on this blog provide some valuable examples.
In the matter of vertigo heel shoes and boots, one of the brands en vogue, specially on eBay Italy or on the german version, is for sure that of Gianmarco Lorenzi, since ever the prophet for sexy luxury footwear.
The models are always fascinating and can be also quite pricy, like these two with platforms, really exaggerated in every sense. There is plenty of variety and browsing carefully one can find also good deals. There is something on eBay.com too, mostly among boots, and European customers can save something with the favorable change.

Christina Aguilera's Candyman

Will the Swing be the fashion of this summer? It would seem so, the track by Christina Aguilera really rocks, by now used also in italian mobile telephones ads, and the video is a masterpiece, a deluge of vintage citations, with the music that remembers the era of Glenn Miller, Big Bands and boogie-woogie. The clip production is simply perfect in every detail, the photography is soft and the colors saturated as in 40's movies, not to mention the choreographies, special effects, setting, make-up, costumes and obviously the shoes, carefully selected from Christian Louboutin's last collections, of which Christina is known to be an affectionate fan.
She sings, dances and moves with great class and is gorgeous, I would say (a little malignantly) much better than natural, in her white uniform and her hair dyed in three different colors.
Take a look at this “The Making of” in two parts, because the job that they made deserves a little free promotion.

Incredible Platforms

Most famous designers are proposing impossibly high platform shoes and sandals for this Spring-Summer. As an example, these Emilio Pucci 5 1/2" sculpture platforms with transparent vynil upper are on sale at Zappos Couture for little less than $700.
Since it's always fun to play the Fashion vs Fetish game, here is a little YouTube video showing a fetish model wearing some different but still remarkable (and maybe cheaper) skyscraper high platforms. By the way, don't see why this video is flagged as inappropriate.

Last Boots

Winter, if it ever begun, is to finish. Boots bought on sale are still sported around for a few more weeks, and the latest models are bought at bargain price for the next year. Will summer boots be the trend as it was last year? I doubt so, browsing magazines and web sites only platform sandals and open-toe slingbacks are seen.
Global Warming consequences...
P.S.: Original video replaced with another by the same author, July 16, 2007.

Yay for Pointy Shoes!

Roger and Sarah Adams from RoSa Shoes are two good friends of mine. In spite of rounded toes ongoing trend, they set up a new brand name to design, make and sell pointy shoes, or better, the pointiest shoes and boots on earth.
Actually they're not new to this sort of things. In the 80's they ran a gothic fashion shop in Brighton UK, retailing old stock shoes from the early 60s and post-punk styles produced by small London factories. Then they begun to design their own range of classic pointed stilettos, and their shoes were worn by Milla Jovovich and Madonna, and stocked by designer Katharine Hamnett, while their higher heel production ended up supplying most fetish shops in London, plus others in Europe and the USA. After that, they were out of the shoe business for fifteen years, while they came back to more conservative activities, bought a house not far from the beach and enjoyed a quite family life.
In one word, the characters are quite original and their story amazing indeed. He's told to be a gifted guitar player and skillful shoe designer, while she's a kind of high heel mummy, now in her ...ties, but still as hot as she was twenty years ago.
Their new RoSa Shoes range, produced in Italy in Civitanova Marche, takes inspiration from those early days, but with the quality of Italian-made leather shoes, that makes these unique pieces suitable for the original and confident woman who enjoys teetering nonchalantly in high slender heels and elegant pointy toes, making other women desperately demand: "Where did you get THOSE SHOES?!".

The Devil wears Prada and dates Vatican real estate guy

They are the couple of the day, beautiful, rich and famous. She, Anne Hathaway, 24 years next November 12th, already a teen age idol in Princess Diaries, became a celebrity after Brokeback Mountain and then a real star acting with Meryl Streep in the last movie about fashion world. He, Raffaello Follieri, 28, was born in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy (the famous Holy Padre Pio home town) and is the head with his father Pasquale of a real estate group based in Park Avenue New York City, in charge of reselling buildings owned by the Catholic Church in America, thanks to solid connections with Vatican top officials and famous yet sometimes embarassing friendships.
There is enough to feed intercontinental paparazzi for a while, it sounds like the story of Stefano Ricucci and Anna Falchi, let's hope that, thanks God, this is not ending so badly... In the picture, the two are taking part in a charity funded by the Follieri Group in Nicaragua.
Anyway she's delicious and in The Devil Wears Prada, inspired by the character of US Vogue chief editor Anne Wintour, is perfect as the boss assistant, a ugly duckling who becomes swan and then flies away. The story is a little unoriginal but funny, and if not else there are a lot of beautiful shoes.

Vivienne Westwood Shoes 1973-2006 on exhibit in Vigevano

On September 16th, “Vivienne Westwood Shoes 1973-2006” was opened in Vigevano Sforzesco Castle. This retrospective, edited by Luca Beatrice and Matteo Guarnaccia, celebrates the genius of the British designer, an anarchical interpreter of the creation of symbol objects: the shoes. The exhibition travels over again her exceptional career main stages, going back to the punk origins in 1973 with the launch of the Sex Pistols, and introducing the models that dictated along the years the rules of a new style. The exhibition plays on the parallelism between the charismatic Duchess Beatrice d'Este, historical figure of the Lombardic town, and the Westwood, one of the most applauded and controversial designers of these days. A link that starts from the "Pianella" flat shoe displayed in the local Footwear Museum, belonging to the first one, in order to arrive to breathtaking and by now most famous model Super Elevated Gillie by the second one, in charge of Naomi Campbell's memorable fall during a catwalk show. The exhibition will remain opened until November 19th 2006.

$500,000 of 9/11 victims fund money spent on designer shoes

One of the widows of the September 11th 2001 attack to the World Trade Center, Kathy Trant, whose husband Dan was a trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of North Tower, went public last year, saying she spent nearly all the $5 million she received from the U.S. government compensation fund in an attempt to allay her grief. "It's disgusting, I'm ashamed of it" she said, hoping that telling her story could help others with the same problem of compulsive shopping.
She traveled to Italy, Jamaica and Asia, obsessively gave gifts to friends and strangers, and spent $1.5 million on luxurious additions to her Long Island home, including a full basketball court and a floor-to-ceiling shoe rack, filled with half a million dollars' worth of shoes signed Prada, Marc Jacobs, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Emilio Pucci and Vera Wang.
She became a celebrity after her partecipation in Oprah Winfrey TV show, where she candidly admitted she was down to her last $500,000. She was recently hosted by british Channel Four for Ground Zero fifth anniversary cover-up.

Stiletto Run

Berlin's Stiletto Run, held last August 19th and sponsored by Glamour Magazine, was widely reported and commented all over the press and other media. Some articles said that it was the first high heels race ever, but it isn't true. Similar races were held in Amsterdam on March 9th, and in Moscow on last July 8th. There are rumors about other races planned in July in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, but there's no evidence about that.
Berlin edition was won by 25-year old psychology student Nadine Sonnabend, who taped rubber strips to the bottom of her shoes, beating the other 100 specially chosen perticipants on a 100 metres track, and winning the 10,000 € prize. The heels had to be (nearly) proper stilettos, at least 7 cm high and a maximum of 1.5 wide.

Dita Superstar

Lovely Dita Von Teese is getting more and more famous even in Italy. Fetish and burlesque icon, but formerly known only among few affectionate fans, she recently published the book "The Art of the Teese", and she's more and more often seen on "respectable" magazines or on TV, modeling on fashion catwalks (Moschino Cheap & Chic) or just attending to the shows with her husband, the cult pop-star Marilyn Manson. But she now seems to be getting more attention than he is. Or am I wrong?

The Heel Is Dead, Long Live The Heel!

This blog, in its first post, two months ago now, started with a de profundis for the stilettos. Stiletto heels lost designers' favour and above all you could see very little around. In the past years I sometimes played the game of counting girls walking around on high heel shoes or boots, and by the end of the day I always totaled a dozen if not more. This Winter they all bought flat motorcycle style or western boots, while only bimbos were wearing high heels.
But not everything is lost. I already spotted a few fashion magazine or TV editorials claiming the great return of high heels and high wedges for next summer and overknee boots for next year. In my opinion designers experimented on their own skin that high heels sell a lot better, and they are returning to the attack. We will see whether the audience will follow the trend or not.

Last Winter Bargains

Winter is coming to an end, but in the YOOX Fall-Winter catalog, with 70% off, there is some good bargain to grab. Take a look at these DIESEL boots for € 90 only. With their nonconformist design they can be good for these last colds but also for next year. Many other designer shoes and boots for less than € 100: Giorgio Armani, Gianni Barbato, Liz Carine, Celine, Costume National, Le Silla, Vicini, Vera Wang, Giuseppe Zanotti Design and more.

India Connection

Some time ago, I was in touch with a manufacture company from New Delhi, and we were planning to produce an embroidered boot more or less like this. Then I thought that it was too complicated to send the pieces to India for the embroidery and then have them back for further workings, so we made nothing. I also remember that the Indian mate doubted that "the market would accept this idea". Just have a look at these velvet boots from Sergio Rossi Fall-Winter 2005 collection, modeled by beautiful Adriana Lima, don't you think they look gorgeous? Just in case you are planning to buy them, consider that they are sold for $3,000 in the US, don't know how much in Italy.

Fashion vs Fetish

The first picture, where the model (probably the beautiful Daria Werbowy) is sporting laced booties with evident fetish inspiration, was taken from Roberto Cavalli FW 2005 catwalk. The second picture...

My Last Pick

These Gucci pony skin slip-ons are my last purchase from YOOX as present for my wife. They have a little platform, long satin ribbon ankle laces, and lizard print leather covered 5" heels. What is not clear from the picture is that they have a black fur application on the ribbon, that gives them a quite funny attitude. To say the truth my wife is a little perplexed, even if in my opinion with black matt pantyhose they look great.

A True Italian Story

Sorry for the Berlusconi-like title, nothing in common. After four years maybe it's time to make a little history and a summary of this meritorious activity. Around year 2001, using my skill and experience in CAD, I started designing the first pair of slip-on shoes. It was just for hobby, but in the end they looked cool to me, so I decided to publish them, and then this web site was set up since may 2002. Due to the remarkable success, I was convinced that there could be a market, and by the end of 2003 I prepared a collection of samples of boots and pumps, thanks to a firm from Parabiago (nearby Milan), which, after some insistence, sent me the goods "on one's word". You can see these gorgeous models on the cover from my home page. Unfortunately the first customer, this not Italian but Mexican, turned out to be a professional swindler and paid with a check that in the end proved to be false.

Although I keep receiving e-mails asking how to order these shoes, I could never sell a pair via Internet, nor find a shop or a distributor seriously interested in retailing them. I sold the remaining pairs to friends and relatives. The firm that produced the samples, by unanimous consent of excellent quality, was owned by Finpart financial group (holding brands like Cerruti, Frette, Moncler, Marina Yachting, Andrea Pfister and Colette). This holding went recently bankrupt, leaving a hundreds million gap, with accusations of rigging the market and fraudulent bankruptcy, and dragged in the storm also the Banca Popolare of Intra, that "generously" lavished its subscribers' money to knit the accounts. Probably those qualified craftsmen that made my shoes (which however I regularly paid for) are now unemployed. The usual "tricky guys of the neighbourhood" made other innocent victims. Another well known story, a true Italian story.

Not Just Another Shoe Site

Many years ago, when I started surfing the web, I remember I tried to type "high heels" in Altavista, and, to my surprise, I discovered a world, a large community of people sharing the same interest for shoes. I read somewhere a statistics according to that fetish sex is one of Internet's most popular topics in the field of softcore porn. After all, also the success of this site demonstrate this. I've lost count of shoe web sites. Either fetish oriented or just fashionable there must be thousands. STYLETTOS Italy Portal, now a recognized and appreciated resource, collects all the best links in the field. I started some time ago with a short selection, then, due to good response, the page has been constantly widened, to the extent of a true branch encyclopedia, divided into three pages. Designers' page has always been the most comprehensive.

The original idea by STYLETTOS Italy was that of creating a bridge between fashion and fetish world, but nowadays there's not a big difference between fetish sex shops and fashion designers' sites, and these ones realise sometimes even better the most extreme voyeuristic fantasies.

I think this web site is different from all the others. Not because it's not voyeuristic (in fact it is very much) but here you won't find something you can see in every other shoe site: real shoes. The main feature of this site is a gallery of snapshots taken from the digital models I made. But looking carefully you'll find also REAL shoes...

Magnificent Obsession

Probably, at least here in Italy, spiked heels aren't trendy anymore, just look around in the streets and you will realize that the mass phenomenon characterizing these last few years is now dripping. Also STYLETTOS Italy corrected its route, if before the claim was "every woman on stiletto heels" now we drifted toward less aggressive, even if equally evocative, shapes. What is not over is the cult of footwear, the search for a model that is exclusive and original, or maybe also apparently equal to any other, but with that something more, that can renew a woman's look by itself, even with used dressing or ordinary jeans.

Women spend fortunes to get the last designer pumps or boots, and every fashionable girl has her closet full. All editorials and comments you find in fashion magazines underline the importance of these so-called accessories, new brands and shops come out everyday, and this is not only here in Italy, the boot-shaped country. The epidemics is now spreading all over the world like an infectious disease.

Maybe someone happened to see the movie "In her shoes", representing a competitive and problematic relationship between two sisters (Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette) different in everything but for the passion, common to many others, for brand name shoes by cult designers like Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahnik, already famous all over the planet after the television series "Sex & the City ".

And what about men? Nobody should think that the cult of women's shoes even as sexual objects is less common among men. The obsession for women's footwear is a serious matter, and for many a compulsive feeling, almost a kind of addiction. Maybe somebody else can remember the final scene in "There is something about Mary", by chance with Cameron Diaz again, where the perennially rejected lover (Chris Elliot) tries to steal main character's footwear collection.