The Shoe Book Feeds Our Desire for Fancy Footwear

The sneaker may be in the midst of a fashion comeback, but the comfy kicks have also inspired other designs. "They’ve become some of the most fetishized shoes around," MacDonell states.

Many department stores have enlarged and refurbished their shoe departments so that they now take up entire floors. "At its Manhattan flagship location, Saks Fifth Avenue created a shoe department so large that the post office gave it its own zip code: 10022-SHOE," writes MacDonell.

In the nineteenth century, boots were the footwear of choice, often "with beading, embroidery, and uppers that combined fabric and leather," says MacDonell.

The bombshell's boost? Stilettos. She was rumored to wear heels with one made slightly shorter than the other, "thus ensuring she was permanently and fetchingly off-kilter," says MacDonell.

It's the norm now to be a shoe fanatic, explains MacDonell. "The average American woman owns about 20 pairs, nearly double the number that was in her closet in the late 1990s," the author writes.

Roger Vivier, who worked for Christian Dior at the time, is credited with inventing the stiletto in 1954, a 3-inch steel-reinforced heel that "perched on a base smaller than a dime," says MacDonell.

Designers have long tinkered with the shape of high heels, and "have consistently shown great imagination in devising new ways to lure women to the shoe department," the author writes.

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