The New Glass Slippers

One of the first shoes we grow up with is Cinderella’s glass slipper.  It’s an icon, a cultural phenomenon, the shoe every little girl dreams of.  (Also impractical.  Glass?  C’mon.)

You can’t blame shoe designers for wanting to take a crack at it.  And fortunately, to coincide with the opening of the new live-action movie Cinderella opening today, Disney asked nine famous shoe designers to give us their best glass slipper.  And boy, did they.

Nicholas Kirkwood gave us these pointed toe pumps.  The bow at the back is covered with rhinestones, and the heel and toe are capped in silver.  The zigzag cut at the toe isn’t my favorite, but I LOVE the sort of iridescent-lace-over-PVC he used for most of the vamp.  GENIUS.

Paul Andrew gives us this pair.  Another pointed toe, capped in metallic silver and adorned with two rows of pointed aurora borealis rhinestones.  PVC up to the heel, which is covered in glittering silver stones.

Jerome Rousseau sort of went in a different direction, almost taking inspiration from the night of the ball: a midnight blue glitter sandal, with a clear toe strap dotted with silver and gold balls, almost reminiscent of planets in the heavens.

René Caovilla gives us a shoe that looks more like Elsa than Cinderella, perhaps, but I bet it would look like glass on-screen.  Light blue fabric covered in sparkling crystals peaks around the heel and cap toe, and icy mountains of PVC dotted with crystals make up the rest of the vamp.

Salvatore Ferragamo goes very structural with his heel, like the Eiffel Tower, or the antenna on top of the Empire State Building.  His heel and toe are capped in black velvet, and the vamp is clear.

Oh, Charlotte Olympia, I’d know you anywhere.  She goes the all-clear route, which I give her major props for.  Can we also appreciate for a second how well the heel is done?  Usually with clear heels there’s an enormous screw at the top that ruins everything, and she made it so tiny.  Also, the heel looks nice and stable, without the need for one of the metal spikes that usually supports heels.  Well done.

Stuart Weitzman is the only one to give us a bootie.  His cap toe of crystals comes to a slight point up the front of the foot, then sprinkles out to only a scattering stones up the rest of the mesh vamp.  For the heel, he goes white satin.

Alexandre Birman gives us two colors of glitter: silver on the wavy strip encircling the foot, and light blue down the back of the heel.  The rest of the vamp is simple white satin.

And the winner?  (This wasn’t a contest, except in my brain.)  My vote goes to Jimmy Choo.

OH. MY. GOD.  Just look at it.  Take it in.  It’s…phenomenal.  The vamp and heel are covered with silver crystals of varying sizes, and at the pointed toe is this crystal explosion.  (Major kudos for actually including glass.)  Words fail me.

The sketches themselves are also things of real beauty, and worthy of hanging on a wall.  The shoes will be displayed at an exhibit at the Berlin Film Festival, and will also be on display in early March at Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store in New York City.  The only way to get a pair for yourselves, however, is probably via fairy godmother.

Sales this weekend:

Sorry ladies, I'm away on a business trip.  You'll have to search out the sales for yourselves!