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This season, strutting your stuff just got a little bit easier.
After years of pumping out 6-inch stilettos popularized by “Sex and the City,” the hottest shoe designers are finally being kinder to women’s feet without scrimping on glamour — with this sexy new look for fall.
Call it the mid-heel. No more than 3 inches tall, it lends shape to a woman’s legs and spice to her outfit, while allowing her to stride purposefully from boardroom to bar and back home again.
SEE THE PHOTOS! THE PETITE PUMP PACK
Jimmy Choo, a company famous for its sky-high platforms, introduced a new line this year called 24-7, which aims to take women “from day to evening, seven days a week.” Translation: shoes you can actually walk in.
While there are a few 4-inchers in the mix, the line also showcases the “Lizzy,” a pointy-toed pump of 2½ inches, and a round-toed version at the same height dubbed the “Irena.”
“The kitten heel has come back as a big trend this year, desired by our customers for their everyday wardrobe needs,” says Jimmy Choo CEO Tamara Mellon.
The rise of the low heel isn’t just a practical phenomenon. It’s an aesthetic one, too. The women of “Mad Men” — who look just as sexy as stiletto-clad Carrie Bradshaw in their tiny kitten heels — have powered the idea that you don’t need extreme heel height to look like a goddess.
Carla Bruni has busted out the mid-heels for numerous state dinners and looks like a supermodel. (Of course, she used to be one.) Michelle Obama came to New York City on Monday sporting a pair of shiny silver 2-inchers that made her stand out from the crowd.
In the past 15 years, finding an exotic snakeskin platform has been easier than spotting an elusive pair of ladylike, mid-heel pumps. “I’m not a high heel wearer because my feet can’t take it,” says Christina Luhur, a 29-year-old SoHo resident who worked in marketing for Fortune magazine before starting her own business. “I would hunt around everywhere and if I found a pair, even if it cost $500, I would buy them.”
But now, more women are demanding the chic comfort shoe — and designers are responding, says Regina Smith Popp, fashion editor of Footwear News. Popp was recently in Paris and Milan for fashion week where, she says, “Many of the designers I spoke to said that women asked for a lower heel and they listened. This season, these lower heels have cropped up at designers like Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo — designers we associate with super-sexy high heels. It seems to mark a tipping point where designers, retailers and consumers are embracing the 2 1/2- to 3 1/3-inch heel — as opposed to the 4-inch-plus platform heels we’ve seen in seasons past.”
Even Carrie Bradshaw’s favorite designer, Manolo Blahnik, has seen a sales uptick in the demure heel heights he offers.
“In New York, we’re particularly selling more [of those mid-heel styles], and in any urban city where women walk,” says George Malkemus, president of Manolo Blahnik.
Blahnik himself declared to The Post: “Tiny heels are sexy!”
Nicole Helocin, editor of footwear blog nyshoespy.com, is psyched that heels are sinking to new lows. “I have a baby now,” she says. “Most of the shoes I get are lower now.” On her wish list? The “Derek” shoe from Tory Burch, a studded pump that clocks in at 2 1/2 inches.
Also popular is Christian Louboutin’s “Mistica” shoe, a round-toed beauty boasting a sturdy 2 3/4-inch heel that comes in black, leopard print and nude patent leather. According to a salesman at Bergdorf Goodman who did not want to be named, the Mistica style and the mid-heel versions of Louboutin’s “Simple” range have been “flying off the shelves.”
Still, don’t be fooled. Mid-height heels are more sensible, but they’re still tough on your tread.
“Fifteen years ago everybody was unanimous that anything over 2 or 2 1/2 inches was considered a high heel,” says Leora Tanenbaum, author of “Bad Shoes and the Women Who Love Them.” “It’s funny — now 2 1/2 inches is being marketed as mid-height. It’s better to wear a
2 1/2 inch heel than a 4-inch heel — but these are still not the shoes you want to be walking around New York City in for 12 or 14 hours.”
(For the record, Tanenbaum says her ideal healthy heel height tops out at an inch to 1 1/2 inches.)
But whatever heights women prefer, the future looks stable for mid-heels, says Luhur.
After graduating from Wharton last year, she started her own footwear business in March, offering nothing but low heeled shoes — the very type that evaded her for years. Her Web site, Scarpasa.com, sells shoes and boots in just three heights: 2-to-3 inches, 2 inches and under, and flats.
“When I first started buying for the site, it was actually very difficult to find low and mid-heeled shoes,” Luhur says. “But this year, starting from the fall/winter 2010 season, it’s been a lot easier.”
After more than a decade of forcing our feet into stilts, Luhur says women are finally fed up. “High heels make you feel crippled. Lower and mid-heels help you move forward,” she says, “both physically and metaphorically.”
Additional reporting by Raakhee Mirchandani