£300,000 stilettos for the well heeled
Scheme to get the homeless off streets fails to hit targets
MADE from 18-carat gold and shimmering with 2,000 diamonds, these stilettos are certainbly a step above your run-of-mill pair.
They have been crafted by jeweller Chris Shellis, a man with a global reputation for providing stilettos for the super-rich.
Pop royalty Beyonce famously sported a pair of Mr Shellis’s Princess Constellation stilletos. Those were a mere snip at £200,000.
But his latest creation – the Angel Wing Stilettos – may be a little out of the price range of those looking for Christmas presents as they are a toe-curling £300,000 a pair.
Despite the price tags attached to the pieces from House of Borgezie – Mr Shellis’s Jewellery Quarter business – there is no shortage of customers. Who are they?
“Russian oligarchs, families from the Far East, certain people in the States and the UK,” says Mr
Shellis. “There are extremely wealthy people in London.”
For £300,000 – more than the price of a brand new Rolls Royce Dawn – customers will own the craftsman’s greatest creation.
The heels are studded with rows of gems. Straps feature gold fleur de lys and the ankle support is the trademark Borgezie ‘Empowerment Angel’. The shoes are available in white or yellow gold.
“They are the work of a lifetime,” says Mr Shellis proudly. “I don’t think I can better them.”
The stilettos have taken years to create.
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“Like any true classical treasure, they have the ability to last for eternity,” adds Mr Shellis. “The craftsmanship needed to create them is the same needed to make a royal crown.
“I can honestly imagine Queen Nefertiti of ancient Egypt wearing them in her palace, or discovered wearing a pair in her sarcophagus. They look very, very regal – every part is special.”
Mr Shellis still laments the one big order that got away – a Far Eastern client wanted 100 pairs of custom-made shoes worth a cool £2 million.
Unfortunately, after months of correspondence, the mystery VIP got cold feet at the 11th hour.
“It’s such a shame,” said Mr Shellis. “It was so frustrating because they really didn’t want me to know who I was dealing with.
“These people are aware how delicate it is.
“They are aware of the controversy that could be caused by spending so much on shoes.”
FIVE out of seven local authorities in the region are missing homelessness targets on a multi-million pound housing initiative, with one council failing to house any people at all in the first year.
Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull and Coventry are all below target for the first year of the £9.6 million Housing First scheme, which was set up to help tackle the region’s ongoing homelessness crisis.
And Wolverhampton failed to house anyone, but says this was because the scheme had not been fully rolled out.
Several of the authorities say they are still confident of reaching their targets for the scheme, which aims to see a combined total of 675 homeless people housed over a three-year period.
Funded through a grant from central government, Housing First works with councils, housing associations and support groups to help rough sleepers break the cycle of decline which has landed them on the streets.
Instead of only offering housing to rough sleepers once they are ‘housing ready’, the new scheme starts by putting homeless people into a home, before building a support network around them through ‘wraparound care’.
The scheme was officially launched in November last year, with a goal of helping 225 homeless people find a home each year.
However, the actual figures for the first year show that only 81 people have been housed through the scheme – just 36 per cent of the target.
A further 75 people have been ‘accepted but not housed’.
Though Housing First is a West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) scheme, it is Birmingham City Council that manages its funding and is the accountable body on the project.
Despite this, the council has housed just 25 of its targeted 100 people in the first year, with a further 31 ‘accepted but not housed’.
However, Kalvinder Kohli, chairman of the West Midlands Housing First steering group and service lead at Birmingham City Council, says that the scheme has hit targets in its first year, which he says was to house 55 people, not 225.
“Housing First in the West Midlands is a pilot programme,” he said. “This means local authorities will be testing their approaches to supporting rough sleepers, learning what works best and adapting their plans to the needs of the individuals on the scheme.”
Solihull is another council that has missed its target for the first year of Housing First, with five people housed and a further three accepted but not housed from its target of ten.