André Perugia, The Artist. That is. And the photograph here below is from 1934, but published only two years later by Minneapolis’ Star Tribune. The wrong date clashed with our previous researches until “The Lively Morgue”, the now dormant New York Times photoblog, came along.
1936 | André Perugia (Actually 1934)
Wire, Metal Heels
Source: Star Tribune (Minneapolis) | April 5, 1936
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MAKING THE WORLD FOOT-CONSCIOUS
Any little negligences and slides from grace are registered in our feet, according to M. André Perugia of Paris. M. Perugia is shown above with three types of shoes, evening Oxford with aeroplane heel, mule with organ pipe heel, and sandal with machine age heel of metal balls.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) | April 5, 1936
1934 | André Perugia | detail
Footwear Of The Future
Source: The Lively Morgue
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The actual press photo is dated March 20, 1934 and the Star Tribune caption is only the last part of the original text witch reads like this:
FOOTWEAR OF THE FUTURE.
6-NY-1439 - NEW YORK CITY - Footwear of the future from the Padova Art exhibit at the Ferargil Galleries, with M. André Perugia, the Paris designer in whose honour the exhibition has been arranged. Photo shows Perugia with three girls wearing the latest in shoes. Left to right - evening Oxford with aeroplane wire heel; mule with organ pipe heel, and sandal with machine age heel of metal balls.
(Times World Wide Photos)
1934 | André Perugia
Footwear Of The Future
Source: The Lively Morgue
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Additional researches made the following text available:
The show will be something like this: nearby a crayon sketch of a barefoot Hindu dancer will be Perugia’s red suede sandal which has steel wire heels. The heels are made of three wire strands, strong enough he says to support a lady weighting a ton.
Near a charcoal drawing of a ballet dancer, poised on her toes will be a green slipper leaving the toes bare with straps coming between them.
Alongside a painting of a titan-haired nude, which is named “The Grey Squirrel” will be a little brocade shoe, its heel made of metal balls.
Perugia is calm about the sudden rise in shoes’ art status. American women neglect their feet, he said, when the foot is the first thing men see.
“From the foot” he said, “you can tell a woman’s culture and breeding. Her face may be changed by cosmetics, but her foot is inevitable.”
M. Plummer
Rochester New York Times Union | March 28, 1934
Apparently, only the metal balls heel survived; not the original prototype, but a later design made for Eartha Kitt sixteen (16) years later. The New York Sun described the shoes as “beyond belief”. Indeed.
D O S S I E R
HEELSTORY
HEEL HISTORY IN PICTURES