The newest heel idea was presented at Milan Fashion Week by the Italian designer shoe brand of Sergio Rossi, and it looks like a gyrose spring.
The Sergio Rossi is manufactured from blameless steel, heated to a temperature of 1,200 degrees in the atelier and then completed off with crystals.
The unparalleled spiral-heel is the ingenuity of Sergio Rossi’s new creative director, Francesco Russo, in advance with Yves Saint Laurent.
Russo said he was infused by the French shoe designer, Andre Perugia, deviser of the ‘Aladdin toe’ and an early heel-less shoe, who worked for Paul Poiret, Charles Jourdan, Jacques Fath and Hubert de Givenchy.
Andre Perugia did make a spiral-heeled shoe, but it was designed as a work of art, not to be worn,” Russo said.
He clarified he had tested the heel in the Sergio Rossi workshop over three months.
“We were lucky. The very first one we made, the steel was heated to the right temperature and it worked. Then we had a model walking in the shoes for a month and the heels didn’t break.”
“I call it my serpent of light.”
The coiled heels are attended by tender straps of satin, rhinestones and laser-cut techno-python.
Also in the new line, for next autumn/winter 2009/2010, are shoes and boots with heels cantilevered at an severe angle, towards the toe.
“It’s all about working on the structure, going beyond the boundaries while staying in balance,” Russo says. “It’s about lines, allure, obsessions.”
The new Sergio Rossi range was shown against a video backdrop with dancers from Les Caryatides company wearing the footwear, their footsteps creating a syncopated rhythm.
Strange heels