This Friday, the Museum at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology will open Shoe Obsession, an exhibit that explores shoes’ phenomenal effect on culture and design. “The average American woman has almost two times as many shoes as she did 10 years ago, and the heels of shoes have almost doubled in height as well,” the exhibit’s co-curator Valerie Steele told The Daily Beast. Encompassing more than 150 pairs of shoes from an array of designers that are both established (Givenchy, Ferragamo) and on-the-cusp (Aperlaï, Charlotte Olympia), the exhibit examines footwear’s evolution into the extreme. Says Steele: “They are almost like little works of sculpture and art.”
Shoe Obsession will run from February 8 through April 13 at the Museum at FIT.
—Misty White Sidell