Even though it’s spring, today we’re going to talk about a black suede boot from Christian Louboutin. The “Monica” is its name; $1,790 is its price; and it is at this point in the season no longer in stores.

Why mention it, then? Well, a couple weeks ago The New Yorker wrote a funny (and blessedly short) article about these boots, which I point you to not as an impetus to purchase, but rather, Margaret-Mead-like, as a case study of the species calceus amator (”shoe lover,” according to some Latin site I found on the Internet). Per the article, these boots are bewildering, hard work, and expensive. It continues: “The Monica comes with some very public fears: of fat, of failure, of flashing.” And, from the boutique manager: “It’s going to take a good five minutes to put them on, and a lot of wiggling around.”

And, yet…they’re all gone. And not because the boutiques sent them back to HQ at the end of the season. No. They sold out two full runs, one in November and one in February.

We do love our fantastic shoes, don’t we?

You can read The New Yorker article in its entirety here.

The Monica is (surprisingly) still pictured on the Christian Louboutin web site, check it out here.

The higher the heel of the shoe, the closer you are to Heaven’s gate.

-Feng Shoe

Always buy a good pair of shoes and a good bed, as if you aren’t in one you are in the other.

-Gloria Hunniford

Gwyneth Paltrow has been stepping out in some may-jor footwear this month, promoting her upcoming movie Iron Man. To see what she’s been wearing, check out the Daily Mail web site (scroll down for the pictures).

While there is one constant in all these shoes – really astonishingly teeteringly high heels – they otherwise run the stylistic gamut from elegantly classic to zipped, buckled, and tied. Walking in (or even standing up on) shoes like these, and doing it gracefully in front of loads of cameras, is not for the faint of ankle.

Nonetheless, aren’t these shoes fantastic? Not only are they feats of structural engineering, they are also dazzlingly daring. They’re obviously not for every day, or even every season. They may only be once-in-a-lifetime shoes, and even then only if you have Gwyneth’s wallet, social calendar, and gams.

But, part of high fashion is fantasy, and our mission here at Fantastic Toe is to bring you fantastic footwear. So, have an ogle — you may even get some ideas for what shoes to wear to your next work event.

I just hope for the best, hope I’m going to find a dress that is comfortable and shoes that don’t make me scream after half an hour.

-Kate Winslet

Today marks the debut of a really fun feature on Fantastic Toe: our curated shoe exhibits.

Every once in a while, we will assemble and post an exhibit of noteworthy shoes in art, the movies, or other medium — sometimes from a bygone era, sometimes contemporary. We’ll post them under the member name “Curator”; you can always find the current exhibit by searching on that name from the Browse Collections interface.

Curator’s first exhibit, “Twist! Monkey! Frug! (Shoe Ads from the 1960s)“, is worth looking at not only for the shoes (which are really quite stunning — check out the Christian Diors and the Charles Jourdans in particular) but also because the beautifully photographed ads are themselves works of art, and the ad copy (from which our exhibit title is excerpted) very much reflects the era. 

For the most part, these are couture shoes — the ads ran in Vogue and similar magazines, here and in France, between 1965 and 1969 — so you won’t find any of what some might call the more outrageous shoes of the 1960s. Instead you’ll see lower heels, more muted colors, wonderfully simple lines. (Can’t you just picture Faye Dunaway wearing these in 1968’s The Thomas Crown Affair?) Needless to say, these are not the shoes that marched on Washington.

One brand in the exhibit with an interesting back story is the venerable but now defunct I. Miller. Its founder and namesake, Israel Miller, who died in 1929, built several shoe stores in New York City; the flagship, located at 46th and Broadway and in operation through the 1970s, bore the inscription “The show folks’ shoe shop dedicated to beauty in footwear.” Even more wonderful, the exterior wall contained 4 sculpture niches, each of which housed a likeness of a prominent woman in the arts. What a branding strategy! The building is now in slight disrepair, but nonetheless it surely belongs on any shoe lover’s tour of New York City.

See how fun this is? Where else can you mix in a little architectural history with your shoe lust? Check out the exhibit, and check back soon for the next one.