「我喜歡這個想法，每位女性都可以在她的鞋底配上幸運符。」“I liked the idea that every woman could wear a lucky charm on the sole of her shoes.”

Riello指出：在17世紀法國的路易十四的法庭上，鞋底真正成為了財富的象徵，尤其是紅色鞋底。1673年，國王發布詔書宣稱只有貴族才能穿令人艷羨的紅色鞋底，而且任何人的鞋跟都不能高於國王擁有的那雙5英寸高跟鞋（是的，男人也曾穿過高跟鞋！）高跟鞋當然一直都是身份的象徵，因為沒有人可以穿著它們進行體力勞動。而選擇紅色鞋底的一個關鍵原因是：紅色的製作成本非常昂貴，需要壓碎經過乾燥處理的雌性胭脂蟲（一種墨西哥寄生蟲）來進行染色製作。（路易十四還訂製了用胭脂蟲染色的皇室床幔和凡爾賽宮裡的椅墊。）為Louboutin帶來靈感的不是17世紀的法國，而是他助理的美甲，啟發了他用紅色指甲油手工繪製鞋底，最終創作出簽名式的紅鞋底。「鞋底的閃亮紅色沒有什麼功能，就是為了向公眾表明它們是我創作的，」Louboutin說，「我選擇這種顏色是因為它迷人，有挑逗感，令人難忘，而且熱情洋溢。」Aquazzura今年夏天在永利拉斯維加斯的Encore Esplanade新開了店鋪，對於品牌設計師Edgardo Osorio來說，選擇在鞋底放什麼樣的裝飾是顯而易見的事情（那位即將成為皇室成員的新娘提出的要求除外）：他一直喜歡收集的金菠蘿。他解釋說，品牌旨在表達意大利海岸式（ Riviera）的美好生活，品牌名字來源於意大利文acqua azzurra，意思是藍色的水，而在意大利和法國南部的別墅中常常會看到石菠蘿的裝飾，這是酒店的好客之道象徵。後來他還發現，在亞洲文化中金菠蘿是幸運的象徵。「金菠蘿象徵聚財，是個幸運符號。」Osorio表示：「我喜歡這個想法，每位女性都可以在她的鞋底佩上幸運符。」René Caovilla品牌那些閃閃發亮的鞋底實際上是用水晶粉末製成。品牌創始人的孫子、品牌創意總監Edoardo Caovilla說：「設計的靈感是希望讓顧客覺得自己像天空中的星星一樣獨特，我們為鞋底加入這樣的特色，希望讓女性覺得走路時在沿途留下閃亮的痕跡。」每雙鞋底的閃亮粉末需要耗時3小時製作，歷經精細打磨（ Caovilla稱之為「鑽石星塵」）並結合精湛手工和高科技，正是這個近100年歷史的品牌對工匠嚴格要求的一種貼切的象徵。Caovilla表示：「製作的工序如此精細，像煉金術一樣，我們製造的鞋不僅僅是一種時裝配飾，而是憑著自身實力成為了一件藝術品。」透過鞋底傳遞的信息，還有什麼比這更美妙？ the length of a shoe’s toe according to the wearer’s income and position in society. A century later, the fashion was for a wider-toed shoe called, among other things, a hornbill or bear paw, where width was then limited according to the wearer’s status. It wasn’t until Louis XIV’S court in 17th-century France that soles, too, became a symbol of wealth—specifically red ones, says Giorgio Riello, a professor of global history and culture at the UK’S University of Warwick and co-author of both Luxury: A Rich History and Shoes: A History From Sandals to Sneakers. In 1673 the king issued an edict that only nobility could wear the coveted red soles, and that no one could own a pair of heels (yes, men once wore them, too!) higher than his highest pair, which was five inches tall. (Heels, of course, have always denoted status, because no one could do manual labor wearing them.) One key reason for the selection of red: It was an outrageously expensive color to make, requiring the crushing of the dried bodies of the female cochineal, a Mexican parasite. (Louis XIV also ordered the royal bed curtains and the chair upholstery at Versailles dyed with cochineal.) It was Louboutin’s assistant’s manicure—not 17th-century France—that inspired him to hand-paint the bottom of his shoes with red nail polish, and a signature was born. “The shiny red color of the soles has no function other than to identify to the public that they are mine,” the designer has said. “I selected the color because it is engaging, flirtatious, memorable and the color of passion.” For Edgardo Osorio, the designer of Aquazzura, which opened on the Encore Esplanade at Wynn Las Vegas this summer, the choice of what to put on his soles (except when soon-to-be-royalty has other ideas) was obvious: gold pineapples, which he’d always collected. The brand is designed to evoke the Riviera kind of good life—its name is derived from the Italian acqua azzurra, or blue water—and at villas in the south of Italy and France you see stone pineapples, a symbol of hospitality, he explains. Then he discovered that in Asian cultures, the gold pineapple was a symbol of good fortune. “It attracts money, so it’s like a lucky charm,” Osorio says. “I liked the idea that every woman could wear a lucky charm on the sole of her shoes.” At René Caovilla, the glittery soles—actually crystal powder—“come from the idea of making our customers feel unique and special like the stars in the sky,” says Edoardo Caovilla, the founder’s grandson and the brand’s creative director. “We give the shoe soles this special characteristic with the idea of the woman leaving her trace as she walks.” The delicate, three-hour process of perfect glitter application (Caovilla refers to it as “diamond dust”) mixes craftsmanship and high technology, a suitable hallmark of the nearly 100-year-old maison’s demands of its artisans: “so fine it is like alchemy, producing shoes that are no longer simple accessories but become works of art in their own right,” he says. What better message to send than that?