While I'm no Imelda Marcos, who reportedly owned 1,200 pairs of shoes,
I do love my Manolos and Jimmy Choos, and see no reason why dropping
$500 on a pair is considered by some to be a bad investment. But even
I draw the line at these alligator Blahnik boots in the company's fall
collection. First, leave the reptiles alone, second, uh, at $14,000, I
could pay my mortgage for 1/2 the year.
How about these gorgeous black pumps from Roger Vivier? (www.rogervivier.com
). They're a much more affordable $2,195, which any sensible girl can
see is totally justifiable.
Check out these shoe facts, which I got from an article by Sophia
Banay titled, "Most Expensive Women's Shoes"
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• American women spent nearly $17 billion on fashion footwear between
October 2004 and October 2005, according to The NPD Group, a retail
and consumer information company based in Port Washington, N.Y. If
that sounds like a lot, it should--it's a nearly 10% increase over
2003 spending.
•
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• Market analysts are keenly aware of the trend toward extravagant
shoe-spending. Handbags and footwear have become the signature items
used to project personal taste, wealth and style.
•
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• Shoes costing $1,000 and up are estimated to account for less than
1% of total women's fashion footwear sales.
•
•
• Besides theoretically helping to lure a royal mate, there are real
benefits to investing in an expensive shoe. For the most part, if a
shoe costs a lot, it's made of better materials and will last longer.
In some cases, however, they are not sturdier--simply rarer. "When
we're talking about shoes at $14,000, it's the materials," says
Michael Fink, senior fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York
City. "Leather and the pattern and type of wood they're using, the
jewels, are the beads hand done, how rare are the feathers--because a
lot of shoes with feathers are using feathers that can't be gathered
anymore, from the archives of the couture feather houses.
So who is plunking down her hard-earned cash for these treasures? Fink
told Banay that he sees two kinds of real-life buyers. "We see a
fashion customer who's in the know, wants a limited-edition shoe, and
money is no object to her. She is, hopefully, appreciating the beauty
of what she's buying and treating it as an art object."
Fink hypothesizes that many shoes purchased at stratospheric prices
are bought by collectors. The shoes go directly into a display case
and never see a foot. "But for another kind of woman, paying $1,000
for a pair of shoes makes sense if she's paying $7,000 or $8,000 for a
Chanel suit," he continues. "In that case, she wants shoes that match
in look and quality, and the shoes don't bring up the total expense of
the outfit by that much."
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