Killer Heels looks at high points of shoe history

Shakespeare mentions high heels in Hamlet, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg praised them and fashion designers from Dior to Manolo Blahnik have bewitched women and men with their versions. Killer Heels is a luxurious, fun and sexy look at the history of high heels, and it manages to be an eye candy and thought-provoking, too. It's on shelves for the holiday shopping season.

Based on an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, the book contains several essays and more than 100 luxurious illustrations that trace the history of heels from ancient Greece and Turkey to the modern streets of New York and Paris. Greek actors used thick-soled cork shoes for greater visibility onstage, and during the Ottoman Empire women used a type of clog for slick bathhouse floors. That supposedly inspired the chopine of 16th-century Venice, and one delicately embroidered pair from that era shown in the book could still attract attention at a party today.

The book is dominated by pictures of heels from the last 100 years, and designer Pierre Hardy notes a common theme there: "People love a high heel because it is not natural. It is a cultural object connected with seduction, power and sexuality."