Two Foot Notes

Shoes, the lowest of accessories, are raised up with two new coffee-tablers out this month. Writer Mary Trasko called upon folks such as Susanne Bartsch, John Badum, and Diana Vreeland to lend parts of their shoe collections for Heavenly Soles (Abbeville), a compilation of extraordinary twentieth-century women's footwear, including 1950s fetish platforms that look like cocktail shakers, Elsa Schiaparelli's "bewigged" monkeyfur ankle boots, and "bitchy" stilettos so pointy that women were rumored to have had their little toes cut off to get them on.

In Shoes (Rizzoli), Britisher Colin McDowell lovingly notes two of his heroes who made them sexy and wearable: Roger Vivier, who created (for Dior) "the most beautiful shoes of this century," and Manolo Blahnik, whose creations are "divine, delicious—the most delicious—and adorable."

BART BOEHLERT