What on earth can a person who designs high heeled shoes for women have in common with an executive recruiter who put engineers in places such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, currently the builder of rockets and driver-less cars in Los Angeles. Quite a lot, actually because we are talking about one woman her name is Dolly Singh. Before her all-consuming interest in creating the perfect high heel, Singh was that Space X executive recruiter.
For many women, and some men, heels are so much more than mere footwear. In their teetering heights, these shoes tell us about fashion and feminism. Heels at once lift and can also tear down a woman. Singh wore her high heels simply because she liked high style and the way the shoes looked. High heels make a statement. Yet, those heels are simply shoes like any other shoes. They are objects that help to separate the human foot, which is inconveniently soft, from the surface of the earth, which is inconveniently hard.
About six years ago it was at SpaceX that Singh, 36, realized high heels weren’t all they were touted to be. Her legs looked great, but her feet hurt. With that recognition, she set to work and was able to form a team that included former SpaceX rocket scientist Hans Koenigsmann, astronaut Garrett Reisman, fashion scientist Amanda Parkes, orthopedist Dr. Andy Goldberg and Oculus engineer Matt Thomas.
Singh knew things could change. During the Great Depression, black and brown shoes dominated the American market. Shortly after, Oxfords became a popular male choice and cork-soled, platform shoes grew popular among women. Singh’s goal for her impressive team was to make four-inch stilettos that feel and look great. She wanted to create a shoe that women can live with and in.Her team set out to build the “Tesla” of high heels. According to Singh these shoes will
“….not be your grandmother’s Jimmy Choo’s!”
Today’s high heels ignore comfort, opting for beauty and unfortunately sometimes, accidents. The name “Stilettos” comes from Italian for “dagger” but their shape suggests a broader menace. Heels that are both skinny and sky-scraping are the things that, in 1993, led Naomi Campbell to trip, dramatically, on Vivienne Westwood’s runway, the victim of the designer’s “Super Elevated Gillie” heels. They are the things that, in 2013, felled Jennifer Lawrence as she took to the stage to accept her Academy Award. They are also the things that in an episode of “Sex and the City” found Carrie walking in a friend’s fashion show, swaggering in a pair of stilettos until, in short order, she tripped on them. There Carrie was, channeling Naomi: splayed on the runway.
As the founder and CEO of California Thesis Couture Singh and her team examined conventional high heels. They discovered a very thin metal spike that supported the heel but provided no structure. They first replaced that thin, metal spike with one made of ballistics-grade polymer.
They played around with the shank of the shoe (the base of the sole, the structure that does the all-important work of arch support) in order to distribute the wearer’s weight toward the heel and thus away from the ball of the foot which is the source of so much orthopedic pain The S-curved shanks of their shoe concentrates about 50 percent of the wearer’s weight there; an improvement from the current industry average of 80 percent.
Singh and her team are on track to deliver a high heel that provides much sought after stability for the shoe through a mixture of science and rocket science. She explains:
“I want women to fall in love with our shoes twice- -when they see them, and when they put them on. Most other labels focus on either pleasing the eye or the body. We changed the paradigm to do both. I believe in always challenging the status quo.”
The goal is to make the shoe as sleek and beautiful as it is functional. What Thesis Couture’s work suggests is that the technology of the heel, the manufactured thing that takes its name from the natural one, could change the politics of the heel. The comfortable stiletto Thesis is promising is one that hurts its wearers less, and demands less of them.
The result is a strappy, basic black stiletto prototype Singh is showcasing at private events, made with advance polymers and thermoplastic polyurethane, with the goal of reducing the weight you bear on the balls of your feet. While she feels most of the work on the technology behind the shoe is nearly done, when it comes to looks, she agrees there’s more work to be done. Pictures show what looks like an average high heel with a strap, but a shoe not on a par for beauty with designers such as Stuart Weiss or Valentino.
Nevertheless, Singh is betting on comfort over substance at this point. Many women are still buying shoes they can’t wear but for a few hours and certainly not for walking any great distances. “The new shoes are like a stiletto that feels like a wedge.” she says.
“They don’t look orthopedic.”
And women can’t wait for Singh’s shoes to hit the market. There is a waiting list of about 10,000 women for Singh’s first full collection of the heels which are priced between $350 to $950, which Singh described as the “classic American luxury bracket.” The styles will range from day to evening and red carpet looks.
Creative Credits
- Written by
- Jane Bokun
- Photography
- Marc Parroquin
- Retouching
- Brianna Kish
- Hair & Makeup
- Paula Heckenast
