Kitten heels are back. Vogue has said so, and Twitter has howled in laughter. Maybe it’s the memory of all those prissy ladies-who-lunch heels. Although they never really left, especially not in branches of LK Bennett. Or maybe Theresa May is responsible for this distaste. She debuted her leopard-print kitten back in 2002 when the heel shape was still in its prime. But still, no one wants to wear the same shoes as the PM, and I say that as someone who shared with Margaret Thatcher a predilection for the Salvatore Ferragamo Vara.
But despite the protestations kitten heels are not only back, they are back in the places that count.
Photograph: Sipa/Shutterstock/ Rex Features
At Gucci, there is a kitten heel that looks like a bamboo spindle, a short, sharp twist of cane. Vetements has collaborated with Manolo Blahnik, to create a beautiful satin kitten shape with a cutaway slingback heel. And Dior has what was once called – and presumably this sounded OK back in the days when language was less aspirational – a “toilet pan heel”.
There is no point getting angry now. It is too late.
In fact, the kitten has been coming for a while, having crept back into fashion via the mid-heel, which has broken out every few years over the past decade, in forms ranging from a block to a low wedge.
Is it the harmlessness of kitten heels that makes them so scorned? Though Amber Rudd probably doesn’t see them as entirely innocuous after getting hers stuck in the paving outside No10 earlier this week. Generally, though, a stiletto is a weapon, while a kitten seems boringly safe. The practical advantages that might recommend them also make them seem dull. But here goes anyway: you can walk for hours in them without getting foot-ache, and they give more of a lift than flats. They can look sportive – they work well with joggers – and I think they have more sense of humour than a pair of stilettos.
That Gucci bamboo, for instance, is a narrow exclamation mark of a heel, a point that can’t be missed if you take in the two red jewels on the front like a pair of steroidal strawberries. The Dior slingbacks are appealing partly because of the “J’ADIOR” logo that decorates the ribbon ties, an amusing riff on “J’ador Dior”.
It is a feat of engineering to go from the width of a woman’s heel to a pinhead in just an inch or two. Getting there – whether it’s in a narrow stack as at Gucci, or the sleek cursive of Balenciaga’s slanting kitten – is all part of the fun.
