Shoes are one accessory lusted for and have shaped various cultural attitudes towards gender, sexuality, wealth and social status. Shoes can be downright sexy! Men love to see women in heels, ankle straps, suggestive toe cleavage and long legs. Is it a wonder that shoes, along with feet have become objects of desire?

Evolving from protecting feet into made for fashion sake, elaborate shoes, and sexually suggestive footwear of seduction, fun and fantasy.

Footwear trends of heel-obsessed fashionists paired with celebrity-driven trends now create the familiar modern mania for eye-catching, sexy, sensual shoes! Women have never got enough shoes, buying a pair of shoes could be compared to sex, but unlike sex, a sexy pair of shoes lasts considerably longer..

Well-heeled elegant stilettos are in! Red patent leather stilettos are the pinnacle of fashion this season and a must for every woman. The higher the heel, the more the shoe screams sex appeal and said to exert a powerful attraction on many men ‘red shoes, no knickers’. They are follow me shoes and the message today is that women are not afraid to ooze with sex appeal.

Shoe-aholic, a woman’s right to go on a shopping excursions and not to be made to feel guilty about buying yet another pair of shoes. The right shoes can make everything different. It can make you walk better and feel better no matter how bad your day has been.

You know you are a shoe-aholic when you wear stilettos in bed, spend your entire months salary on one pair of shoes, go on a weeks holiday and take over 7 pairs of shoes and buy a pair of shoes that don’t go with anything in your wardrobe.

The stiletto philosophy is about being a sexy and powerful woman, so when you next go out shopping, go and shop for a pair of sexy red patent leather stiletto shoes and become an object of desire.

For the shoe worshiper or budding shoe designer this is a must. If a visit to the exhibition is not poss then at least drop by the website with a cup of coffee. MK

www.twmuseums.org.uk Check out the tour dates for later events

29p Per Hour – Would You Work For That?

Spanish & Italian Shoe Manufacturers can’t compete!

Did you know that Italy and Spain over the past few years have lost over 40% of their shoe manufacturing to the Far East, in particular to China? With a passion for design, quality and fashion I find it disturbing that we are all jeopardising the future of the Italian and Spanish shoe manufacturers by buying so many cheap imports from the Far East. Perhaps we should think about the conditions the Chinese work in. They work over 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for around £25. That’s 84 hours per week at 29p per hour – would you expect anyone to work for that? What’s the average minimum wage in this country? A lot more than 29p per hour and yet, we all seem very happy to exploit this nation of workers by continuing to buy their products. Don’t get me wrong, I think competition is good for all, but how can the Spanish & Italian manufacturers compete?

As from next year shoes from the Far East will have a £4 tax levy on each pair. I’m not sure if this is enough are you? Paying an extra £4 for a pair of shoes isn’t going to have a hugh influence on whether we buy a pair or not, or is it? It certainly wouldn’t change my decision so may be we should just think about some ethics here and decide what’s important to global economy, or is a bit like being green, because the impact isn’t instant we really don’t seem to care.
So what’s going to happen in Spain & Italy? Do you really care if you can’t buy quality Spanish shoes & when you visit Spain on holiday in 4-5 years time all you see in their shops are cheap imports? Don’t we go on holiday because it’s different and we love buying different things? Well I’m not sure the future is bright and I just wonder what’s going to happen over the next five years..

A little like our coal industry, who will supply us in the next decade with the fantastic quality design and fashion that we have so come to expect from Spain & Italy and will they be able to survive?
LAS

Faking It or Just Good Marketing?

With the majority of our shoes coming from China and the Far East, I wonder just how many shoes you have in your wardrobe from these countries? I’ve counted mine and I’ve got over 10 pairs of shoes from the Far East and the rest from Europe.

The reason for this question is that I recently engaged in a conversation with a friend who was very proud that she had just purchased a pair of Spanish shoes whilst on holiday in Spain for just fifteen euros. Knowing that I’m sort of a shoe expert (having my own shoe company called Shoes Galore) I was very curious when she put the words Shoes, retail shop & e15 together – because my experience tells me that you would find it hard push to find Spanish shoes selling for e15! I’d challenge anyone to buy a pair of leather shoes made in Spain in a retail shoe shop for this price.

Keen to show me her purchase she pulls out a very bright pair of shoes that she thinks is leather and made in Spain. Leather and fifteen euros don’t go together however I can see why she was confused.

Let me enlighten you all. Looking on the inside of her shoes, it had the words written – PLANTA PIEL inside a leather symbol – which means leather. The shoe actually came from China, it didn’t have the words MADE IN CHINA on the shoe, because they never really do. What the Chinese have learnt very quickly is that if you make the inside of the shoe (insole) in leather only & print the words PLANTS PIEL inside the leather symbol then it gives the impression that the whole shoe is leather & made in Spain!

If in doubt, the price will generally give it away, the Spanish & Italians would find it almost impossible to manufacture and retail a shoe for fifteen euros’. So, I ask you is it faking it? Or is it just good marketing? Fooled? My friend was and to be honest I didn’t have the heart to tell her the pair of shoes she had purchased was plastic, Chinese and definitely not Spanish.

So a little tip when you next go shopping in Spain. Spanish shoes will have MADE IN SPAIN written on them, because they want you to know that the shoe has actually been MADE IN SPAIN. So just because you buy a shoe in a Spanish shoe shop, please don’t assume it’s made in Spain look at the label, check the quality and more importantly the price!
LAS