Chunky Heels

For Fall 2008 this is one of the shoes I designed for Mike&Chris. The heel was developed from a sketch and used both covered in leather and wood veneer. The particular heel development process was unique because I had to tweak it to accommodate the stiffness of the wood that was going to wrap around the curves and would have to be flat enough to ensure smoothness in production.

I went to Italy for a day, just to make the final heel adjustments with the technicians at the heel factory. From the sketch of the heel, it is created on the computer using a 3-D program. From the computer, a wood block is set up in a carving machine that it’s hooked up to, and it’s carved precisely. After the final shape is confirmed, a metal mold is made and the heel is mass produced in resin. The heel factory also has to make a mold for the top lift (the little plastic nub on the bottom of the heel to protect it from wear and tear). The heel requires different top lift’s for each covering the heel gets, for instance, the wood veneer covering is slightly thinner than leather, so the top lift has to be millimeters smaller to look smooth and fit correctly. 

This style did not sell well and the company abandoned it, a bit prematurely given that just this season Chloe’s heel was hauntingly similar, and in my opinion it’s really hot.