The Shoe God Has Spoken


If you love shoes, especially vintage shoes, you need to read this amazing interview with Jonathan Walford. The link to his interview with Collectors Weekly is shown below. All hail Collectors Weekly for their phenomenal work in the arcane worlds of collecting Good Stuff!

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an-interview-with-vintage-shoe-collector-jonathan-walford/

I am a shoe hound and I am always on the hunt for the next thrilling shoe. A large part of my hunting is bringing home what I have found in my travels and doing research. I always want to know the story of what I am holding in my hand--or on my foot.

It amazes me how little really good information is out there on shoe styles. Are there names for heels besides the ubitquous "kitten heel" and "Stilettos" and "Platforms"?What about the shoes that don't have high heels but just a tiny little heel? I know there are Cuban heels and stacked heels and today I discovered there are Spanish heels.

A Spanish heel may be my new favorite. It seems before the advent of the stiletto and after the blockier heel of the 20s and 30s, there was a nice tasteful 2.5 -3" heel out there, tapered but not spiky. This is the heel I see on so many older shoes. Eureka! It has a name. The Spanish heel.

Then there is the kitten heel which is overused and wrongly used for every short heel. It dates back to the 60s. Kitten heels were like training wheels for stilettos. We got them to practice our grown up high heeled walking before we ready for the big time. Yes, I was a teen in the 60s, amazing isn't it? Dinosaurs still walk the earth. The kitten heel has since been slapped on every curvy little short high heel shoe and it has migrated to the adult world.

Another thing Jonathan reminded me of, there were no metallics and few crazy colors in shoes before the 60s. Shoes were pretty much black, white and brown with the occaisonal maroon oxblood shade thrown in for the really daring ladies.

I loved his observation that shoes followed hemlines. When you could finally see a leg attached to a shoe, shoes joined the fashion world and took on color and style and cut and became the crazy fashion statements we love today. If you love shoes read this article and be amazed. And check out that strappy sandal by Perugia from 1939. Holy cow! It could have been made this week.

Happy Hunting!


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