The Curious Economics of Luxury Fashion: Millennials, Influencers and a Pandemic by Don Thompson

Author:Don Thompson [Thompson, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DNT
Published: 2021-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

THE HEIGHT OF FASHION

I’ll do shoes for the lady who lunches, but it would be, like, a really nasty lunch, talking about men. But where I draw the line, what I absolutely won’t do, is the lady who plays bridge in the afternoon!

—Christian Louboutin, fashion designer

Nothing damns a woman faster than to describe

her as wearing ‘sensible’ shoes.

—Elizabeth Semmelhack, senior curator of the

Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto

One of Manolo Blahnik’s much-repeated rules of high fashion is that “You put high heels on, and you change.” Marilyn Monroe quantified that, “High heels make a woman 25 percent more dominant, 50 percent more self-secure and 100 percent more sexy.”

The role of high heels is changing, driven by millennials and Gen Z, and then by the shutdowns during the 2020 pandemic. Pre-pandemic there were complaints and petitions against heel-wearing rules, with only mixed success. The Japanese labor ministry in 2019 responded to a widely publicized petition from their female employees with the statement that female employees wearing heels at work was “necessary and appropriate.” The employees appealed, and lost. Japan has an ongoing #KuToo campaign, a take-off on the words for shoes (kutsu) and pain (kutsuu).

There are still social situations in the West where high heels are seen as obligatory, but far less than a few years ago. The role and meaning of female footwear in 2024 is likely to be very different. That shift threatens a large and profitable portion of the luxury fashion business.

Switch from Manolo and Marilyn to Cardi B, a Bronx, New York-born rapper (birth name Belcalis Almanzar), whose single Bodak Yellow rose to number one on the Billboard 100 rankings in 2017. The music video opens with Cardi B wearing a yellow-green abaya while riding a camel in the Dubai desert. The camera reveals she is wearing ‘Bianca’ Christian Louboutin patent leather stilettos. Many viewers caught the subtle message that Louboutin red soles—even in a remote desert setting—represent sexuality, strength, and financial success.

Is that the seven-decade message of high heels? Are heels feminist or anti-feminist? Do they convey authority or oppression? Professionalism or subservience? Sexual availability or female confidence? The answer to all these descriptors is ‘yes’, depending on circumstance. After the image of the Louboutins, the sound track in the rap video goes: “These expensive / These is red bottoms / These is bloody shoes / Hit the store / I can get ’em both / I don’t wanna choose.” The Bodak Yellow single includes a further verse about the red soles, credited with a doubling of online searches for the shoes, and a surge in sales.

Lauren Collins tells the backstory to the red color in a 2011 New Yorker article. In 1993, Louboutin was creating a fashion presentation inspired by Andy Warhol’s silkscreen Flowers. He did a prototype based on the Warhol image, but was unimpressed when he saw the result. His assistant sat nearby, doing her nails. Louboutin took her red nail polish and painted the sole of the prototype. He later explained, “Men are like

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