It's a question of faith: Some people believe in Christ…and some believe in Christian Dior. It seems like whenever people really like something, they treat it with spiritual reverence—football, Pinkberry, Oprah, yoga—and, yes, fashion. We worship retail via the red carpet, and Vogue is to many of the style-inclined what the Torah is to Jews.
Of course, every religion has a symbol or talisman—an object its members can identify with and look to as a unifying icon. For devout fashionistas? Behold, the mighty stiletto: the Mercedes-Benz of women’s shoes, the highest of high, the thinnest of thin, the spikiest of spikes. It's defined by a long, skinny heel, 1 to 8 inches in height. The always classic—though not always popular—stiletto has been slenderizing legs and perfecting the posture of style-obsessed women for decades.
But wearer be warned, even the most poised can fall from a lofty perch. Just ask poor Milana Keller, the model who semi-famously tripped on her precarious stilts twice during Dior’s 2008 Resort collection show.
Dangerous by design—the name "stiletto" comes from the Italian for dagger—it first strutted down the runway of Christian Dior in 1955, the invention of the inimitable Roger Vivier. Immediately, the killer heel was all the rage. Who could forget Marilyn Monroe teetering on those Ferragamo pumps as she ran to catch the departing train in "Some Like It Hot," as Jack Lemmon proclaimed, “Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs.”
With the ’60s came the Mod movement and its flats, platforms and laissez faire attitude toward wearing brassieres. Thankfully, a Spanish visionary by the name of Manolo Blahnik revived the stiletto just in time for the ’70s. As a result, Bianca Jagger didn’t have to wear anything with spurs while riding into Studio 54 on a white horse. The ’80s saw shoulder pads and cowboy boots, but still the stiletto persevered. It even weathered the anti-glamorous grunge era known as the early ’90s.
Perfectly paired with a cocktail dress, a show-stopping evening gown or skinny jeans and a T-shirt, the stiletto has become a fashion staple like the little black dress, pearls and Jackie O sunglasses—popular among woman who dare to be sexy in an increasingly dull, Golden Globe-less world.
You don’t have to drop $750 on a pair of lime-green Manolo Blahnik Sex and the City-like ankle-wrap sandals to feel stylish. For the budget-conscious, anyone with feet can find something at DSW, Forever 21, Payless or Downtown’s Soho Shoes. For those with a little more money to spend, there’s Kenneth Cole, ALDO, and Charles David. And for class as high as the heels themselves, blow the next three months’ rent at Diavolina, Neiman Marcus, Sigerson Morrison, LF Stores or Stella McCartney.
Your feet probably won’t thank you for it, but it’s not like you use your pinkie toes for anything, right?
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Marcos Luevanos is Style editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
