Beautiful shoes are the foundation of any fashionable woman’s wardrobe, and as the editor of American Vogue, Anna Wintour has access to more stylish skyscraper heels than she could ever wear.
So why, then, has the legendary fashion editor insisted on wearing the same pair of nude, pointy-toed slingbacks not just to every London Fashion Week show she has attended over the past few days, but almost everywhere she has been since 1994, when they were first made-to-measure for the editor by Manolo Blahnik himself?
Blahnik showed his shoes at London Fashion Week for the first time this Monday, when he revealed his reason for doing so: ‘I wanted to get more in touch with normal people.’
His shoes are not the most expensive out there, but still hover around £500 a pair, so the idea that he is connecting with ‘normal’ is slightly moot.
More importantly, he unveiled his shoes for next spring: they come in a riot of colours, from daffodil yellow to sugary pink, acid green and scarlet, and are adorned with tassels, bows, silver buckles, gold brocade, cream embroidery, zebra spots, florals…
All of which seemed infinitely more exciting than the nude pair, which have two intersecting straps over the front of the foot, that Anna Wintour seems to have had surgically attached to her tootsies.
So why does the fashion editor love them so much? Well, first off, these shoes are not really nude. They are produced expressly for Anna in two skin-coloured tones that perfectly suit her colouring.
Blahnik made a last – a wooden model of Wintour’s foot – around which he sculpts her shoes, meaning each pair will fit her contours exactly. Which means they are supremely comfy. A godsend, given she sometimes has to walk from limo to kerb.
Ms Wintour takes delivery of several identical pairs each season, as she is very aware of that cardinal fashion rule: never wear a pair of shoes two days running, as they need time to breathe. The open toe reveals her ‘meticulously groomed’ feet (Manolo Blahnik’s words, not mine).
Like Kate Middleton, who for years has seemed melded to her LK Bennett nude patent courts, Ms Wintour understands that nude goes with everything: jazzy prints, and every colour in the rainbow.
Nude is far more summery than black, and less severe. A closed shoe or, worse, an ankle strap, only serves to shorten the leg, and Ms Wintour ‘has fantastic legs’ (again, MB’s words, not mine).
Anna Wintour realises that her shoes, as she sits with her legs crossed in the front row, will appear in almost every catwalk photo for the rest of eternity, and, perhaps, can’t be bothered to choose a fresh design for every appearance, to be picked over by people like me.