Well heeled – the history of the stiletto

Lena | May 18, 2010 | 0 Comments

As for who designed the shoe, it seems as though no specific designer can take the credit. It is rumoured the great painter and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci may have dreamt it up.

However, it is more likely the shoes you know and love today were influenced by the designer Roger Vivier, born in France in 1913 and who sculpted shoes for Ava Gardner, Christian Dior and the Queen. His fashion house lives on, visit the website here.

The Beatles hysteria of the Sixties saw the stiletto fade away on the high street as other styles, like wedges and Chelsea boots became popular.

But then along came the don of stilettos, Mr Manolo Blahnik (pictured). In 1972 Ossie Clark, the great British designer who typified Sixties prints, asked Blahnik to design shoes for his runway show. The shoes he created were works of art, rich green leather straps winding up the model’s legs topped with red flowers.

Fast forward to the Nineties and Blahnik’s shoes penetrated the mainstream when Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw screamed at a mugger: “You can take my Fendi Baguette; you can take my ring and my watch, but please, don’t take my Manolo Blahnik’s!”

Blahnik’s shoes, often a wear-all-day height, are a perfect example of Eighties power dressing, unlike today’s stilettos which can only be classed as a feat of architecture at times, such as Alexander McQueen’s armadillo shoes

Despite the health warnings against balancing all your weight on a metal spike less than half a centimetre in diameter, the stiletto is here to stay, even if that means walking home, sans sensible jacket, with your stilettos in your arms.

Great places to find vintage stilettos:

Absolute Vintage
Candy Says
Steptoes Antiques
eBay