The 50 Wildest, Most Torturous Shoes of All Time
As shoe trends have changed drastically over the last few hundred years, one truth seems to remain: Heels can really hurt. Whether you’re teetering in six-inch Louboutins or in your sensible shoes, there’s a precariousness about even putting them on, which makes wearing them part of the fun. But historically, some heels are more torturous than most: Take, for example, the Spanish Inquisition’s Iron Boot, filled with boiling water, or the medieval foot press, reminiscnent of a panini-maker for your feet. And more recently, too, designers have innovated shoes that verge on the insane – elaborate pieces that are part style, part art, part fetish object. From Alexander McQueen’s amphibian Armadillo Heel to the completely unflexible Backwards Heels and beyond, click through our slideshow of the 50 most torturous, fascinating heels of all time.
Noritaka Tatehana’s Custom Lady Pointe The long collaboration between the Japanese designer and Lady Gaga yielded these behemoths, custom-made fo...
Noritaka Tatehana’s Custom Lady Pointe The long collaboration between the Japanese designer and Lady Gaga yielded these behemoths, custom-made for her “Marry the Night” video. Reaching an absurd eighteen inches above the ground, the Lady Pointes still fall short of the Tallest Gaga Heels title — but, because of their drastic en-pointe angle, are her most masochistic to date.
Photo: Noritaka Tatehana/NORITAKA TATEHANA
Gaga’s Sky-High Heelless Platforms Again created by Noritaka Tatehana in collaboration with Gaga's personal design team, Haus of Gaga, these cust...
Gaga’s Sky-High Heelless Platforms Again created by Noritaka Tatehana in collaboration with Gaga's personal design team, Haus of Gaga, these custom leather platform boots proved too cruel for the fame monster to handle. She dramatically succumbed to the perils of gravity in front of photographers in London’s Heathrow Airport in 2010.
Photo: INFphoto.com
Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 Armadillo Heels Burned into our collective pop consciousness by Lady Gaga, these bizarre foot helmets made a spla...
Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 Armadillo Heels Burned into our collective pop consciousness by Lady Gaga, these bizarre foot helmets made a splash in the designer’s spring 2010 “Plato’s Atlantis” collection. The crystal-encrusted claws inspired by Darwin’s On the Origin of Species lift the walker a whole foot above the ground. Daphne Guinness swears they aren’t too difficult, but British Vogue editors later said they couldn’t even walk across their office in the ergonomically challenging shoes.
Photo: Francoios Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
Jeffrey Campbell’s Float Shoes The absurd shoemaker to the masses inverted the heelless craze, creating the illusion of ceaselessly standing on t...
Jeffrey Campbell’s Float Shoes The absurd shoemaker to the masses inverted the heelless craze, creating the illusion of ceaselessly standing on tiptoe by hiding a thin plastic strip in plain sight underneath a traditional stacked heel. Without sitting flat on the ground, the invisible heel rocks the foot back and forth as the rigid lucite edges chafe away the skin at the ankle, heel and toes for a thoroughly dismal walking experience.
Photo: Solestruck
Christian Louboutin’s Lady Daf Upping the ante on his iconic five-inch Piagelle heel Christian Louboutin's almost six-and-a-half-inch platform st...
Christian Louboutin’s Lady Daf Upping the ante on his iconic five-inch Piagelle heel Christian Louboutin's almost six-and-a-half-inch platform stilettos have tortured celebrities and the sky-high style set ever since. But Louboutin has no sympathy for the pain-trodden. As he puts it: “High heels are pleasure with pain.” Meaning, Get over it.
Photo: Michael Buckner/WireImage
Roger Vivier Couture's Spring/Summer 2009 Floral Double-Decker Heel Part of the “One is Too” collection, this stand-out piece played with doubles...
Roger Vivier Couture's Spring/Summer 2009 Floral Double-Decker Heel Part of the “One is Too” collection, this stand-out piece played with doubles in a nod to the oversoles worn by past nobility. Head designer Bruno Frisoni explained that these layered crocodile platforms are for ladies of leisure to wear “from the sofa to the bedroom.” Presumably, at that point, they’d slip into something more comfortable?
Photo: Dominique Maitre/WWD
Vivienne Westwood’s Spring 1993 Super-Elevated Gillie These nine-inch, lace-up, mock-croc purple platforms famously sent Naomi Campbell for a tum...
Vivienne Westwood’s Spring 1993 Super-Elevated Gillie These nine-inch, lace-up, mock-croc purple platforms famously sent Naomi Campbell for a tumble on the runway during Paris Fashion Week. Even decades of ridiculous shoes later, Westwood’s court-shoe-inspired Gillies still out-avant the competition in the race for tortuous footwear.
Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images
Noritaka Tatehana’s White Heel-less Boots Gaga first introduced the world to this avant-garde designer when she sported these fearsome boots in h...
Noritaka Tatehana’s White Heel-less Boots Gaga first introduced the world to this avant-garde designer when she sported these fearsome boots in her "Alejandro” music video. Around the five-minute mark, the watchful eye catches the singer hobbling in these nine-inch monsters, demonstrating just how little surface area Tatehana gives the wearer in his haute interpretation of the tin-can stilts from childhood.
Photo: Noritaka Tatehana
Delmanette’s Heelless Slingback Slipper Another innovative relic of the mid-twentieth century, this American answer to F. Pinet’s trompe-l'œil de...
Delmanette’s Heelless Slingback Slipper Another innovative relic of the mid-twentieth century, this American answer to F. Pinet’s trompe-l'œil design raises the heellessness to even greater heights. The straps securing the satin slingback allow the foot to move more freely than the pump, but also invite the foot to shift and the sliver of support to give out from under its wearer. Fun!
Photo: Courtesy Shoe-Icons
Natacha Marro’s Super High Heelless Mary Janes The Cordwainers’ College-trained designer Natacha Marro once proclaimed: “If shoes are loved, they...
Natacha Marro’s Super High Heelless Mary Janes The Cordwainers’ College-trained designer Natacha Marro once proclaimed: “If shoes are loved, they have to be worn!” But not all of her custom-made mary janes offer the same stabilizing platform toe to offset their absent heel. An especially contorting black-patent pair sported by Daphne Guinness achieves the same height as a platform by binding the wearer's foot into a nearly vertical slant.
Photo: Courtesy Natacha Marro
Jan Taminiau’s Spring/Summer 2011 Geta The couture designer known for his opulent chaussures reimagined the Japanese geta for his “Irradiance” co...
Jan Taminiau’s Spring/Summer 2011 Geta The couture designer known for his opulent chaussures reimagined the Japanese geta for his “Irradiance” collection in 2011. Leaving behind practicality and almost any resemblance to the traditional platform sandal, Taminiau played with curves to create a thin, undulating column that elevates the dangerously wobbly crystal-encrusted shoes that Beyoncé wore (with some balancing help) on the back cover of 4.
Photo: René van den Berg/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Christian Louboutin's Fetish Ballerine In 2007, Louboutin teamed up with David Lynch for a fetish collection, taking the carnal underbelly of foo...
Christian Louboutin's Fetish Ballerine In 2007, Louboutin teamed up with David Lynch for a fetish collection, taking the carnal underbelly of footwear design to inspired levels of excess. This piece, designed by Louboutin for an auction to benefit the English National Ballet, may be the purest illustration of what he meant when he said “A shoe has so much more to offer than just to walk.”
Photo: Courtesy Photo
Ballet Boots Following in the footsteps of the now-ubiquitous stiletto, this contemporary fetish craze is creeping towards high fashion. Queen B ...
Ballet Boots Following in the footsteps of the now-ubiquitous stiletto, this contemporary fetish craze is creeping towards high fashion. Queen B endured a pair of the lace-up bondage boots in her video for “Green Light.” Don’t worry, with heels around seven-plus inches forcing the foot into en-pointe position, it’s not moving toward department stores very fast.
Photo: Peter Lindbergh/handout
Caro Peirs's Fetish Shoe This overt appropriation of the infamous Rabbit examines the phallic tropes of the high heel through a comical, pop-cult...
Caro Peirs's Fetish Shoe This overt appropriation of the infamous Rabbit examines the phallic tropes of the high heel through a comical, pop-culture lens. The cherry on top comes in the form of bunny ears adorning the toe strap, redoubling two major Sex and the City moments — over-the-top shoes, and the season one episode, “The Turtle and the Hare.”
Photo: David Collart/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Maison Martin Margiela’s (Actual) Glass Slippers Margiela ripped a fairy tale icon off the Disney screen, repurposing the classic stiletto pump i...
Maison Martin Margiela’s (Actual) Glass Slippers Margiela ripped a fairy tale icon off the Disney screen, repurposing the classic stiletto pump into a dangerously dainty work of art in 2009. To further amplify the Cinderella fantasy, each slipper is sold individually, making it all the easier to drop as you disappear into the night.
Photo: Courtesy Maison Martin Margiela
Rick Owens’s Fall 2011 Over-the-Knee Accordion Boots A classic example of Rick Owens's penchant for innovative draping and structure, his 2011 ac...
Rick Owens’s Fall 2011 Over-the-Knee Accordion Boots A classic example of Rick Owens's penchant for innovative draping and structure, his 2011 accordion-fold leather boots invert the natural bend of the ankle and siphon any range of motion out of the knee through the wedge boot’s leather shaft.
Photo: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images
Japanese Okobo Geta Of the many Geta varieties found in Japanese culture, the Okobo reached the most extraordinary heights. Worn by the maiko as ...
Japanese Okobo Geta Of the many Geta varieties found in Japanese culture, the Okobo reached the most extraordinary heights. Worn by the maiko as part of their geisha bootcamp, these extra-tall, lacquered-wood flip-flops featured a small pointed toe forcing these young “dance girls” to clip their gait, adding to their vulnerability and sex appeal.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com Photo: Dragon Dance Japanese Antiques/trocadero.com
The Chopine Considered one of the first fashion fads, these oversoles caused more harm than just Renaissance-style regret. Their prohibitive heig...
The Chopine Considered one of the first fashion fads, these oversoles caused more harm than just Renaissance-style regret. Their prohibitive height — from 7 to 30 inches -- first limited them to the feet of the leisure class. Once the platforms trickled down to the masses, the city of Venice banned the style for fear the shoes were causing miscarriages in the women who wore them.
Photo: Mark Blinch/Corbis
Lotus Shoes Adorning the feet of Chinese women for millennia, these intricately embroidered silk slippers held great personal significance to the...
Lotus Shoes Adorning the feet of Chinese women for millennia, these intricately embroidered silk slippers held great personal significance to their wearers, symbolizing class and marriageability while manifesting a level of foot fetishization and disfigurement unparalleled by any other culture. Broken bones cinched the diminutive foot closer to the prized three-inch Golden Lotus, a symbol of Buddhist piety twisted into a cruel quest for perfection.
Photo: V&A Images, London / Art Resource, NY
Grimm’s Gilded Cinderella Slipper Of the countless versions of Cinderella, nary a one renders the same cruelty-free story offered by Walt Disney....
Grimm’s Gilded Cinderella Slipper Of the countless versions of Cinderella, nary a one renders the same cruelty-free story offered by Walt Disney. In their bloody version, the Brothers Grimm spotlight the idea that slight feet equate inherent beauty when the evil, ugly stepsisters start chopping off toes in their attempts to squeeze into Cinderella’s slipper and snatch up her prince.
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Foot Press Medieval torture came in all shapes and sizes, but this iron panini press was a pretty universally inflicted form of punishment. T...
The Foot Press Medieval torture came in all shapes and sizes, but this iron panini press was a pretty universally inflicted form of punishment. Two pieces of iron were cranked ever tighter around the captive’s foot until the bones cracked. Sometimes the plates included spikes, or just one long rod, impaling the foot to prevent the victim from wiggling out of place.
Photo: AP/Corbis
The Iron Boot Unlike other relics of the Spanish Inquisition, these iron forms actually resembled the footwear of the day and were often simply r...
The Iron Boot Unlike other relics of the Spanish Inquisition, these iron forms actually resembled the footwear of the day and were often simply referred to as the boot. After inserting the victim’s foot into these insidious galoshes, the inquisitor poured boiling water and, in some cases, molten lead(!) into the pain vessels, eating away at the victim’s skin and sometimes penetrating the bone.
Photo: The Granger Collection, New York
The Punishing Shoe Taking the tortuous en-pointe position to the extreme, these metal slippers were shackled onto the feet of misfortunates strap...
The Punishing Shoe Taking the tortuous en-pointe position to the extreme, these metal slippers were shackled onto the feet of misfortunates strapped into a standing pillory. With their top half fixed in place, it was only a matter of time before their toes couldn’t take the pressure and their heels laid to rest on a nasty bed of spikes.
Photo: INTERFOTO/Alamy
The Spanish Boot Presumably named after the Inquisition that so commonly employed it, the Spanish Boot encased the shin or whole lower leg in two...
The Spanish Boot Presumably named after the Inquisition that so commonly employed it, the Spanish Boot encased the shin or whole lower leg in two planks of iron. Unlike the vice grip of the foot press, torturers hammered wedges between the skin and the metal walls encasing it. The only direction for the wooden blocks to budge was inward, deeper into the flesh, and eventually, bone.
Photo: INTERFOTO/Bildarchiv Hansmann /Copyright (c) Mary Evans Picture Library 2008
The Poulaine or Crakow This exaggerated toe style from Poland ascended the European fashion ranks in the late fourteenth century. The longer the ...
The Poulaine or Crakow This exaggerated toe style from Poland ascended the European fashion ranks in the late fourteenth century. The longer the point, the higher the class, with noblemen’s stretching two feet in front of them had they not been tethered to their ankles. Clumsy as they were, they proved fatal for many French crusaders in the Battle of Nicopolis, when they had to cut off their pointed tips to escape the enemy.
Photo: Museum of London / The Art Archive at Art Resource
Kei Kagami’s Candle The London-based designer brings his architectural background to the fore of his design concepts. Though quoted as saying “fu...
Kei Kagami’s Candle The London-based designer brings his architectural background to the fore of his design concepts. Though quoted as saying “functional beauty” plays an important role in his shoes, this structurally experimental piece begs to differ. Forcing the walker vigilantly onto her toes with a fire (quite literally) lit under her, the Candle inflicts corporal punishment at the first sign of toe fatigue.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Aminaka Wilmont’s Spring 2009 Soleless/Souless Shoe No, this is not an Internet hoax. These crazy wooden wedges actually walked at London Fashion...
Aminaka Wilmont’s Spring 2009 Soleless/Souless Shoe No, this is not an Internet hoax. These crazy wooden wedges actually walked at London Fashion Week, tethered like futuristic splints onto models' feet and lower legs. The experimental shoe reverses the heelless craze, doubling the toe-torture by denying any protection as it yanks the heel above the ground, inflicting the burden of balance onto the exposed ball of the foot.
Photo: Alastair Grant/AP/Corbis
Aoi Kotsuhiroi’s Orchidacea Hermaphroditus Known for her conceptual “body objects,” the French-based artist explored the beauty of the grotesque ...
Aoi Kotsuhiroi’s Orchidacea Hermaphroditus Known for her conceptual “body objects,” the French-based artist explored the beauty of the grotesque with this provocatively named piece from her “Exotic Regrets” collection. The menacing heel asserts power as the foot concedes to the waxed linen rope, tying it down in the style of kinbaku, a Japanese form of bondage characterized by intricate knots and aesthetic rules for restraint.
Photo: Courtesy Aoikotsuhiroi.com
Kei Kagami’s 2011 Version of the Heely Though officially untitled, this industrial avant-garde shoe calls to mind the children’s craze that took ...
Kei Kagami’s 2011 Version of the Heely Though officially untitled, this industrial avant-garde shoe calls to mind the children’s craze that took out many a middle-schooler in the mid-aughts. Kagami’s design adds the arch of a stiletto, forcing the body to counter its forward bias in order to move across the floor. The oxidized metal wheels lend the designer’s radical, wearable artwork a cold-blooded extravagance that would make his outlandish former employer, John Galliano, proud.
Photo: Courtesy Kei Kagami
Peter Popps’s Circle Though at first glance, this seems like an alien lobster claw, it actually is a shoe. Really. The futuristic piece marks the...
Peter Popps’s Circle Though at first glance, this seems like an alien lobster claw, it actually is a shoe. Really. The futuristic piece marks the out-there designer’s escape from commercial footwear design. He went pretty far off the beaten track with this painfully unstable shoe, drawing inspiration from bondage, sixties visions of the Space Age, and magnetic transportation systems of sci-fi.
Photo: Tom ten Seldam/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Beyoncé and Jay Z’s Custom PMK Zoo Trainers The bespoke sneaker company used nine exotic animal skins, including elephant, ostrich, python...
Beyoncé and Jay Z’s Custom PMK Zoo Trainers The bespoke sneaker company used nine exotic animal skins, including elephant, ostrich, python, and boa, to create Hov’s PETA-offensive Brooklyn Zoo sneaker. Not to be outdone, Miss B commissioned her own pair of white-wedged trainers, called King Bey, boasting ostrich, croc, and stingray ... just to name a few. And we quote: "Bow down, bitches."
Photo: Splash/PMKCustoms.com/Corbis
Naomi Hertz’s Bridge Shoe Infatuated with the way the bridges by architect Santiago Calatrava “challenge their very connection to the ground,” He...
Naomi Hertz’s Bridge Shoe Infatuated with the way the bridges by architect Santiago Calatrava “challenge their very connection to the ground,” Hertz used tension to reinvent the way a shoe carries the body. For all its artistry and intellectual merit, pressing strips of icy metal into the soles and intimately acquainting your toes with the ground illustrates the painful disconnect between theory and practice.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Mikio Sakabe's Autumn/Winter 2011 Boots These metallic leg-cuffs bring the cartoonish features of anime and manga into the real world. The Japane...
Mikio Sakabe's Autumn/Winter 2011 Boots These metallic leg-cuffs bring the cartoonish features of anime and manga into the real world. The Japanese designer’s futuristic, knee-high hooves may appear flat, but the enclosed stilts’ similarities to a chrome pipe make any ankle movement futile. Occult glamour never did promise comfort or function, did it?
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com Photo: shiori{*..*}kawamoto
Scary Beautiful Backwards Heels by Leanie van der Vyver and René van den Berg These bestial creations went viral last year, in the video o...
Scary Beautiful Backwards Heels by Leanie van der Vyver and René van den Berg These bestial creations went viral last year, in the video of a dainty model folded into a stork-like posture as she inched across a room. “I wanted to see where sexy ends and grotesque begins,” said van der Vyver, unsettled by the depraved lengths humans go to alter their bodies in search of perfection. These back-to-front “heels” warn where our constant striving might lead the concept of beauty.
Photo: Courtesy Leanie van der Vyver
Nina Ricci’s Fall 2009 Heelless Ankle Boots The last shoes Olivier Theyskens ever desgined for Nina Ricci, these creations used the extended sole...
Nina Ricci’s Fall 2009 Heelless Ankle Boots The last shoes Olivier Theyskens ever desgined for Nina Ricci, these creations used the extended sole of mid-century heelless designs. Theyskens added extra height with a platformed toe that suspended the rest of the foot in thin air, boosting the models eleven inches above the runway.
Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images
Thierry Mugler’s Spring 2012 Over-the-Knee Heelless Boots Gaga stepped out (without falling over) during Paris Fashion Week, fresh off her runway...
Thierry Mugler’s Spring 2012 Over-the-Knee Heelless Boots Gaga stepped out (without falling over) during Paris Fashion Week, fresh off her runway performance at Nicola Formichetti’s first womenswear showing for the French line formerly known as Thierry Mugler. Of course, Gaga would not strut anything out there without a gigantic, levitating heel. Especially if it meant spitting at a notoriously stringent dress code at Maxim’s Restaurant.
Photo: Marc Piasecki/WireImage
Masaya Kushino’s Lung-ta Called horse of wind in Tibetan, Kushino took her inspiration from mythological beasts to create these precariously bala...
Masaya Kushino’s Lung-ta Called horse of wind in Tibetan, Kushino took her inspiration from mythological beasts to create these precariously balanced heelless platforms with a human-hair ponytail. That is, until the wrong move whips it under your ultra-elevated toes, already teetering on an angle, and then you’re in for a different type of bad hair day.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
FINSK’s Project 2 Cloven Heel This uncanny trompe-l'œil shoe creates the illusion of a more ordinary ankle boot hovering above its own reflection...
FINSK’s Project 2 Cloven Heel This uncanny trompe-l'œil shoe creates the illusion of a more ordinary ankle boot hovering above its own reflection. In reality, the cut-out heel is suspended above a two-and-a-half-inch wooden platform fastened to the toe. Its beautifully executed visual composition tilts the whole foot forward, to the detriment, of course, of balance.
Photo: Courtesy Solestruck.com
Kronier Creations’ Les Crocodiles Dangereux Jochen Kronier pulled out all the stops to commemorate his twentieth anniversary of making [sic] “cra...
Kronier Creations’ Les Crocodiles Dangereux Jochen Kronier pulled out all the stops to commemorate his twentieth anniversary of making [sic] “crazy strange and outer space platform boots.” And with these, the sci-fi inspired costume designer/drag stylist has outdone himself. The croc-embossed leather holds the foot at an ungodly angle, couching the heel above a metallic fin protruding from a platform toe that makes Tatehana’s devilish creations actually look like child's play.
Photo: Courtesy Jochen Kronier
Safa Şahin’s Fall 2013 Stalactite Challenging gravity in more ways than one, this conceptual foot object turns the cave upside down for a design ...
Safa Şahin’s Fall 2013 Stalactite Challenging gravity in more ways than one, this conceptual foot object turns the cave upside down for a design that would be more functional to hang from than to walk on. The young Turkish designer’s shoe not only hyperextends the foot’s arch, its only contact between the ground and the platform is an uneven one, rendering them unwalkable.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Ultra Sexy 9-Inch Wrap-Around Heel Viewed as high art, this could be an abstract meditation on the claw-foot of furniture design. But this isn’t ...
Ultra Sexy 9-Inch Wrap-Around Heel Viewed as high art, this could be an abstract meditation on the claw-foot of furniture design. But this isn’t high art. This is pure fetish. The doubled ankle straps, prohibitive height, and extreme angle virtually paralyze the foot on the tortuous edge of en-pointe.
Photo: Courtesy Zaphon Shoes
1780’s (Probably) Fetish Shoe These super-slanted slippers existed behind closed doors way before Vivier’s steel-enforced stiletto brought the fi...
1780’s (Probably) Fetish Shoe These super-slanted slippers existed behind closed doors way before Vivier’s steel-enforced stiletto brought the first wave of heel inflation to the street. Their wafer-thin silk and kidskin offer almost no support for the wearer’s foot, let alone her body weight. So even if archeologists won’t say it for certain, we all know these depraved but delicate shoes were meant for lying down.
Photo: Courtesy www.shoe-icons.com
F. Pinet’s 1958 Heelless Pump Without the platform toe of today’s heelless chassures, this early version from the reputed French designer rests t...
F. Pinet’s 1958 Heelless Pump Without the platform toe of today’s heelless chassures, this early version from the reputed French designer rests the balancing responsibility on a thin strip of sole that extends slightly behind the toe. The rest of the foot, jammed into the restrictive purple suede, nearly levitates above the ground as the wearer attempts to move across the floor on not-quite-tiptoe.
Photo: Courtesy www.shoe-icons.com
Walter Steiger’s Fall 2010 Molto Pumps The French footwear atelier took a break from its signature convex heel for this super-straight style. Thi...
Walter Steiger’s Fall 2010 Molto Pumps The French footwear atelier took a break from its signature convex heel for this super-straight style. This shoe’s sharp angles fold the top of the foot over the toes as its height pulls the heel back and away from the ball of the foot. The name, which means very much in Italian, sums up the pain factor quite nicely.
Photo: Walter Steiger
Eelko Moorer made by René van den Berg’s Red Shoes Another one of van den Berg’s costuming collaborations, this time taking the fetizhized...
Eelko Moorer made by René van den Berg’s Red Shoes Another one of van den Berg’s costuming collaborations, this time taking the fetizhized en-pointe stance to disturbing heights as part of Moorer’s “ELEVATION” exhibition. Dancer Mirjam Soegner performed in the shoes on opening night of the 2013 Fashion Biennial at Arnhem, after which the harrowing pair was relegated to a display case before it caused any bodily harm.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Lauren Tennenbaum’s Heavy Artillery Fascinated with the opulent and the grotesque, the young artist merged the worlds of stripper heels, bondage ...
Lauren Tennenbaum’s Heavy Artillery Fascinated with the opulent and the grotesque, the young artist merged the worlds of stripper heels, bondage leatherwear, and fantastical glimmer into one visually, if not physically, eviscerating shoe. Straps with crystalline daggers tether the whole foot, from the toe up past the ankle, restraining movement so any bending brings the crystals crashing together toward tender flesh.
Photo: Lauren Tennenbaum
Enikő Tóth-Kern’s “2025” Collection Fascinated with the oft-pondered boundary between function and fashion, the Hungarian fashion designer...
Enikő Tóth-Kern’s “2025” Collection Fascinated with the oft-pondered boundary between function and fashion, the Hungarian fashion designer waxes conceptual with this futuristic collection. The razor-sharp metal cones affixed to the soles make walking out of the question, and just handling these shoes is a perilous event. Add some leg movement, like the models brandishing them in this Nero Homme video, and you’re at considerable risk of impalement.
Photo: Dömölky Dániel/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Peter Popps’s BOW BOW drips sadomasochism as Popps explores the animalistic side of human nature. Stippled with spikes and bound in leather strap...
Peter Popps’s BOW BOW drips sadomasochism as Popps explores the animalistic side of human nature. Stippled with spikes and bound in leather straps, the curved floor contact rivals the brutality of a metal scorpion tail. Popps imagines this as protection for the wearer’s “most sensitive spots,” but it seems more likely to torture the temptress herself along with innocent passersby.
Photo: Tom ten Seldam/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Joyce Verhagen’s 2011 Pink Verhagen’s chucky of footwear turned to saccharine relics of girlhood to eschew the torment lurking in her design. Toe...
Joyce Verhagen’s 2011 Pink Verhagen’s chucky of footwear turned to saccharine relics of girlhood to eschew the torment lurking in her design. Toes bent at almost 90 degrees do little to ease the hyperextended arch balancing in these ridiculously tall heelless platforms. The plaited doll-hair ankle strap offers a glimmer of security right before its unruly locks creep under already unsteady toes.
Photo: Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
Omar Perez’s Like a Virgin Platforms What at first seem like the murderous creations dreamed up by a bloodthirsty woman-hater were actually creat...
Omar Perez’s Like a Virgin Platforms What at first seem like the murderous creations dreamed up by a bloodthirsty woman-hater were actually created as a tribute to the pain ladies endure in the name of style. Still, these bandsaw-strapped numbers feature heels from 17 to 24 inches tal,l with serrated edges more than sharp enough to break skin.
Photo: Katharine Landmier/Courtesy of VirtualShoeMuseum.com
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