Best Foot Forward
19 August 2021
The designer second-hand shoes market has parallels with other luxury fashion items, but remains its own specialism.
Avril Groom
Avril Groom writes on jewellery, watches and fashion for Telegraph Time, Times Luxx, FT How to Spend It magazine, Centurion magazine and Country and Town House magazine, among others.
Shoes from J’Adior collection, Dior.
Second-hand shoes may not seem a promising area for investment but in the peculiar world of designer fashion anything goes, the accepted rules of what to buy first and foremost.
In the parallel area of designer handbag resale pristine condition, original boxes and even carrier bags are essential though there are exceptions – Bonhams recently sold a beaten-up Hermès Birkin bag for £119,000, on an estimate of £20,000. The reason? It was one of several Birkin bags owned by Jane Birkin herself – she had gifted it to a charity auction in 2014 and the buyer was now cashing in.
There is the clue. This bag had star-spangled provenance, and in certain special cases so do worn shoes – what may appear to be old trainers can fetch prodigious amounts if they are the right model scuffed up by the right feet. On the other hand, extreme and highly-crafted designer shoes, often from runway shows, may be collected as art works to display rather than to wear, and then condition is paramount.
So the usual rules governing value – design, rarity, condition and provenance – apply, though as shoes show any wear prices are generally lower than for clothes or handbags. But not always. The trainers cult is highly specialised and certain rare models with starry connections produce extraordinary results. The current highest auction price is $1.8 million for a pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1 prototypes, sold by Sotheby’s last April and worn by Kanye West to perform at the Grammy Awards in 2008, before his collaboration with Nike was public knowledge but immediately clocked by fans who then knew that the now-iconic range was coming. Equally, rare models of Nike Air Jordans, from the collaboration with basketball player Michael Jordan, consistently fetch around $500,000 if worn, signed and sometimes sweat-stained by the man himself.
Prices for women’s designer shoes are more modest, though provenance counts. The red sequin slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939, sold in 2000 for $660,000. The highest valuations are for shoes made of precious stones – the copy of those red slippers that Harry Winston made from rubies and diamonds in 1989 to celebrate the film’s fiftieth anniversary are valued at $3 million but this has not been tested at auction.
Begum crystal-buckle mules from Amina Muaddi.
In an image-driven world, extreme shoes from shows or worn by much-photographed personalities do best. If ever Dame Vivienne Westwood’s nine-inch blue platform shoes off which Naomi Campbell fell so gracefully in 1993 came to market the price would be stratospheric – they are currently in the Westwood archive and often loaned for exhibitions.
Style icon Daphne Guinness is a walking work of art, whose penchant for extreme shoes has helped raise designers’ profiles. She has championed the work of Japanese designer Noritaka Tatehana, whose sculptural “heelless” shoes look more art than wearable though Guinness makes light work of them. Her red embossed leather ankle boots sold for £8125 (est. £2500) at Christie’s in 2012, in aid of the Foundation set up by her late friend, stylist Isabella Blow.
She has also supported British designers, including John Galliano – his 2003 red wedge sandals for Dior raised £3600 at Kerry Taylor Auctions in 2008 – and Alexander McQueen, whose Angel Wing sandals made £15,000 (est.£5000) at the Christie’s sale. They were from McQueen’s final collection, eighty percent completed before his death in February 2010 and sombrely shown in Paris shortly afterwards. His death somewhat ghoulishly increased prices. One of his most extreme and well-known styles was the surreal Armadillo boot from his penultimate show, Plato’s Atlantis – three pairs were reproduced in python skin for a Unicef charity auction in 2015, one selling for a record $161,000 on a $15,000 estimate, while Kerry Taylor sold an original show sample for £60,000 in 2019.
Among specialist shoe designers Manolo Blahnik, whose styles have been a byword for elegance since the 1970s and who gained fame through being referenced on Sex and the City, is in a league of his own. A 2002 collaboration with British artist Damien Hirst produced just twenty pairs of ankle boots in two designs - Spot and Spin. A pair of each sold at Bonhams this year for £4462 and £3187 respectively.
These boots are very wearable, and numerous clients buy to wear rather than to wonder at.
Shoes from Gemma Shuter’s collection.
Sellier Knightsbridge specialises in scarcely or worn current designer shoes at competitive prices that, if from revered names like Chanel or Hermès, are a great investment at a quarter to a third of the original price. Co-founder Hanushka Toni explains, “once shoes are worn they depreciate, so always choose the most classic styles rather than seasonal trends, even from a bold brand like Christian Louboutin. You will be able to wear them for longer or resell if they’re lightly worn”.
Star Wars themed shoes from Gemma Shuter’s collection.
Even at less exalted levels there are keen followers prepared to pay for rarities. Gemma Shuter started as a vintage fashion enthusiast (she wears mainly 50s/60s dresses) who found some Irregular Choice shoes on Amazon and started collecting them as they suit her style. Her ornate, bright and joyful shoes, often with heels in the form of a cartoon or film character, have a huge following for limited editions. “I found them on Amazon about seven years ago”, she says. “They’re real statements, and a challenge, which I love. I buy, and sometimes sell or swap, on eBay or a Facebook group – one has 50,000 members. I hunt rarities like the unicorn shoes or my prize R2D2s – I don’t wear those because condition is important. Rarities can be up to £700 and they disappear in seconds”. Exactly the same collector’s spirit as whoever forked out $1.8 million for Kanye’s old sneakers, but far more understandable.
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