Platform sandals, £220 (nakedwolfe.com)52 The Times Magazineother styles at dinner included Chanel courts,
spindly mules, block-heeled sandals: nothing
that would stop anyone strolling the short
distance from the Tube. Yet the mix was
a pendulum swing away from the sort of
footwear that had become standard before
we could ever have imagined only being
allowed out for one walk a day.
In March 2020, I was writing a piece for
this magazine on the apparently permanent
demise of high heels when the Stay at
Home order came through and killed off
any remaining likelihood of anyone wearing
a pair for – I assumed at the time – at least
six months.
At that point, they felt at odds with modern
life. Having been dubbed “the clackers” in the
2006 film of The Devil Wears Prada – for the
noise their Manolos and Jimmy Choos made
as they walked – Vogue editors a decade
later were wearing Balenciaga trainers, Gucci
loafers and Bottega Veneta biker boots.
In February 2020, the only women wearing
heels on the front row were “the clients”- trophy wives and younger girlfriends.
Now, after two years, three lockdowns and
with the average Briton’s “trainer wardrobe”
worth £474, word on the streets is that heels
are making a comeback.
“Heels are back, post-Covid. Demand has
soared. Customers aren’t holding back – they
want ultra-glam,” says Natalie Dickson, head
of women’s luxury buying at the designer
boutique Flannels. The retail data company
Edited says the number of heels selling
out online has jumped 58 per cent on
pre-pandemic levels. As the shoe-turier
to the A-list Charlotte Dellal used to quip,
“The higher the heel, the better you feel.”
Hers is a story of market forces,
however. Dellal’s brand, Charlotte
Olympia, closed in 2018, filing for
bankruptcy after ten years of supplying
vertiginous heels to front-row types
and party girls. Dellal’s signature £400
Dolly platform pumps – as worn by
Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé – came
with a 5.7in spike heel and a 1in
contrasting golden stack under the
ball of the foot.
They were the apogee of a trend
that owed its existence to Sex
and the City. Between 1998 and
2004, heels had stopped being a
footwear category and became a
personality type. Previously known
only to Vogue editors and socialites, the
men who made the most expensive pairs - Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and
Christian Louboutin – became
household names. After the
financial crash in 2008, heels
were turbo-charged: higher,
brighter, more expensive.
Saint Laurent’s Tribute pumps came
with a 5in heel, 1in platform and a
spindly stiletto of less than an inch square.
Giambattista Valli’s Victoria sandal – named
after Posh Spice herself – had a 1.5in platform
to support a tapering 6.5in spike heel. There
were reports that women in LA had begun
having toe surgery to better fit into
Louboutin’s 5.5in skyscraper Lola pumps.
The madness ended in March 2011, when
the revered Celine designer Phoebe Philo
wore Adidas Stan Smith trainers to take her
bow at the end of her fashion show. Teamed
with nothing more showy than a black polo-
neck and trousers, those simple white trainers
at once showed up the extreme heels for what
they were: forced, silly. A bit tarty. When, in
2013, designer trainers featured on the august
couture catwalks of Dior and Chanel, the
extreme “power heels” favoured by the likes
of Beckham began to fade from view, worn
only by diehards, on the red carpet and
the catwalk.
In 2014, flat brogues made an
appearance on Beckham’s own catwalk.
The volte-face was an international
news event.
By 2018, heel sales were down
12 per cent and trainers up 37 per cent.
In early 2020, retail analysts at Lyst
noted a 25 per cent decrease in sales
of heels compared to the same point
in 2019. At the final pre-Covid
round of shows in February 2020,
heels barely featured at all.
So, are we now witnessing
a revival?
“We’ve seen the highest
demand for heels in ten years,” says
Rebecca Farrar-Hockley, creative
director at Kurt Geiger. “Over the
past four years, trainers had become
the most dominant, and that was
exacerbated by Covid. But now
customers want statement shoes- the higher, the sparklier, the better.”
You might expect heels to account
for 50 per cent of sales at Kurt
Geiger’s Metro Centre shop in the
clubbing city of Newcastle, but the split is the
same in its London stores too.
The brand’s popular £129 strappy Park
Lane sandal has a 3.7in heel. Farrar-Hockley
says the average heel height has increased
by three inches compared with two years
ago, and expects customers will soon be
clamouring for a 4.5in spindle. The last time
Kurt Geiger sold them was in 2013.
Not everyone is joining the stiletto dash,
however. At John Lewis, heels are up by 70 per
cent on last year and the dressiest styles are
selling quickly, yet the chain’s biggest shoe
success story of the year is a £45 plain and flat
Mary-Jane pump that has had to be restocked
twice. Add to this the fact that two out of
three Brits now say they will wear trainers
to the office, and the WFH-won level of
informality at work seems unlikely to shift
back. Shoppers are still looking for shoes they
can walk in.
This could explain the return of platforms
selling for the first time in a decade or so.
The original Seventies “rock and roll
cobbler” Terry de Havilland’s label is enjoying
a resurgence of interest in its £325 metallic
wedges and chunky heels, as spotted on Cher
and David Bowie in their time.
A new generation is coming to platforms
for the first time. My 19-year-old spies tell
me it is Naked Wolfe’s £220, 5.5in, uberchunky
neon platform sandals that top their wish list
now. Imagine a glam rock meets Spice Girls
aesthetic and you’ve got the idea.
Russell & Bromley’s bestselling £225
Topform sandals have an 3.3in heel and
a 1.2in platform, meaning the slope between
the two feels like a low heel might, rather than
a cantilevered stiletto. Schuh’s £40 Swae
platforms pay homage to the French Vogue
favourites by Nodaleto, with their chunky
square 3.5in heel and 1in stack.
Platforms are big at Christian Louboutin
too. Two years ago, about two thirds of the
label’s heels were under two inches, down
from a blistering 2007 peak of 7.8in. The
world’s sexiest shoe brand, famous for its red
soles, was once known for spindly stilettoes,
but it is the £845 5in platforms that are most
popular now. Even the glamorous 4in courts
in Louboutin’s new collection now come with
a rather more “walkable” lipstick-shaped bullet
heel rather than the ankle-wibbling, nail-like
pins of yore.
This isn’t the return of smart office court
shoes nor is it a swing back to the most full-
throated sort of pre-crash statement It heels.
Instead, somewhere between the two lies the
footwear you’re most likely to see in the beer
garden this summer or at weddings. You’ll
be able to spot the ones back in flats who’ve
overdone it, too. Heels are the new working
from home: exciting in small doses but
numbing if you keep it up for too long. nA NEW GENERATION IS
COMING TO PLATFORMS
FOR THE FIRST TIME
Valentino platformsGETTY IMAGES