Heart and sole

Yes, I do have a pair of Manolos – second-hand, since you ask. My favourite shoes at the moment are a pair of mint-green suede Ferragamo loafers and the beaded grey silk mules I bought in Beirut last summer, although I'm also very fond of my French ankle boots with the kitten heel. Then there are the lilac mules with pink soles, and the brown suede wedges with red-and-gold sequined flowers, not to mention the black suede courts with the gold spike heels. "Why do you have so many shoes?" a boyfriend asked recently, gazing at the modest little collection on my bedroom floor. I resisted the temptation to throw open the wardrobe and show him the rest, neatly stacked in their original boxes. Prada mules that slip off at awkward moments; leopard-skin ones like those favoured by the Conservative Party chairman, Theresa May; what Germaine Greer might call "fuck-me shoes" – I have the lot. I even have a pair of French mules, decorated with beads and tiny mirrors, which come with a note from the manufacturer explaining that they are works of art and one shouldn't do anything as crass as actually wear them.

While I have never found it difficult to reconcile a passion for shoes with my feminism, I am willing to admit that my habit of spraying plain boots with gold paint was a major offence against taste. (It was a long time ago, guv.) So, in my view, are trainers in any form – an opinion shared, I am glad to learn, by the master shoemaker Manolo Blahnik. In fact, I don't like practical footwear at all, which means last winter's snow was particularly agonising for me. And I once wrecked a new pair of blue suede loafers by wearing them to scramble to the top of a waterfall in a rainforest in Guatemala. But at least I didn't do it in kitten heels.

Even so, I'm slightly taken aback to discover that there is a new magazine, Shoo, entirely devoted to "the sublime pleasure of buying and flaunting fabulous footwear". Sceptics may wonder whether this isn't a niche market too far, but the publisher, the media lawyer Jonathan Vanderkar, is aiming for a circulation of 30,000. This not only sounds ambitious, it's also a telling comment on our shopping-obsessed culture, given that long-established political magazines struggle to reach the same figure – and they don't cost £3.85 a throw. The magazine will be published quarterly, a tacit admission that there is a limit to the number of really interesting articles that can be written about footwear. But perhaps it will attract readers who feel that there are not enough shoes in Tatler and Vogue.

Its existence also reflects an explosion in the sales of smart women's shoes. The high-street fashion-shoe chain Office has scored a huge hit with the launch of an upmarket sister shop, Poste Mistress, specialising in the ultra-glamorous end of the business. Kurt Geiger, for years a posh but somewhat staid purveyor of shoes to rich old ladies, last year metamorphosed into a mecca for lovers of up-to-the-minute killer heels. And Linda Bennett, the entrepreneur behind the LK Bennett chain, synonymous with kitten heels, was last year named one of Britain's 100 richest women. Bennett, a self-confessed "insatiable shoe fetishist", has built the chain from one tiny shop in Wimbledon to 22 branches and a business worth £32m, and claims to have launched the brand on a hunch: "I felt there was a place in the market for the style of women's shoes that I wanted to promote. I was absolutely convinced it would work.

"I am certain that because I sell only what I want to buy, what I crave to own, I get it right for other women. A shoe is a very three-dimensional object, like a work of art. It's shapely and curvy; it has balance and it's made from sensuous materials, and the colours are often gorgeous."

Then there is the rise of celebrity shoemakers, whose names are dropped as regularly by society columnists such as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson as those of their royal connections. (I'm sure I once read about her boarding a plane dressed only in a bikini and a pair of Manolos, perhaps because she wanted to be prepared in case of a sudden descent into the sea.)

It has to be said that Blahnik, the British-based shoe designer whose dandyish appearance calls to mind Karl Lagerfeld, is easily as well known as the great couturiers of 30 years ago. Blahnik's work is currently on show at the Design Museum in London and a book of his drawings has been published by Thames & Hudson. This is all in spite of the fact that a pair of Manolos will set you back as much as £400, which is why mine are what is politely known as "pre-owned".

There is a thriving trade in posh second-hand shoes, given the stamp of respectability by the revelation that the late Diana, Princess of Wales gave her cast-offs to the Duchess of York. (Diana is said to have been mortally offended when Fergie also revealed she had caught a verruca from her benefactor. Such things happen even in the best circles, it seems.) There is no doubt that Blahnik's shoes are extraordinarily well made; he carves and files the wooden lasts himself, and hand-finishes the 150 styles he produces each season, according to a profile in Shoo. "Thankfully, the young are becoming much more aware of craftsmanship now and not just labels, which is great. It gives hope," he says. "They may see that, given the work that goes into these shoes – the details that can't be reproduced by a machine – they are worth the money."

But who are these women – aside from Imelda Marcos and the late Diana, Princess of Wales – who are happy to spend as much on a pair of shoes as on a holiday? A recent poll conducted by AOL came up with the bizarre statistic that 28 per cent of women believe that buying a new pair of designer shoes is as exciting as sex, which suggests either that online polls are unreliable or that a lot of women are frankly nuts. Sue Constable, who rejoices in the splendid title of shoe heritage officer at Northampton Museum, argues in the launch issue of Shoo that expensive footwear is "a great boost to the ego, especially if you're feeling down. It also has a great deal to do with your self-image, status and how you wished to be perceived by others." And it is certainly the case that shopping has become the prime leisure activity of many people in this country, and shoemakers have benefited as much as any other producer of smart and luxury goods.

Unlike other costly items of clothing – La Perla underwear, say, or a Stella McCartney dress – shoes have the advantage of being permanently visible to the wearer. You can admire your feet without the aid of a mirror and unlike a size 10 dress, just about any shoe can be worn by just about any woman. (Whether she should is another matter, which was the point of Germaine Greer's famous jibe about "fuck-me shoes".) Feet stay the same size, even if a woman puts on a lot of weight, and I have known several large woman who were inordinately proud of their dainty feet.

What has happened in recent years, though, is that women's shoes have got both higher and harder to wear. Some of the examples in Shoo's fashion spreads – perilously high red suede sandals by Joseph Azagury, or mules encrusted with paste diamonds by Gina – are a step too far, for me at least. They remind me of late-Victorian fashions – the crinoline and the bustle, for example – whose purpose was to turn women into helpless, decorative objects, signifiers of their husbands' status and wealth.

These days, of course, women buy shoes and clothes for themselves. Some of my friends get round the heels problem by travelling to parties in trainers and changing into stilettos when they get there, but I stick (mostly) to my LK Bennett kitten heels. I've noticed, by the way, that men often ask why women put themselves through such an ordeal for the sake of fashion, but they also seem appreciative of the result. Perhaps they have not grasped that, despite appearances, stepping into all but the most ridiculous high heels is immediately empowering, which is why so many women are willing to put up with a bit of discomfort. It is an incredibly confident statement about the female body and sexuality, showing off what in more conservative times – and in some Islamic countries today – was regarded as shameful.

Blahnik is keen on the idea of showing a bit of "toe cleavage", but he thinks it is what shoes do to a woman's body that men find sexy: "I do think that wearing my shoes transforms you – the way you feel, the way your buttocks move. That's what's sexy, not the shoes." But the idea that women's feet have a sexual significance goes back centuries. Witness the repellent Chinese practice of foot-binding, which involved muti- lating the foot and then almost worshipping the deformed result. "It seems as though the Chinese male wants to thank the woman for having submitted to being castrated," Sigmund Freud commented in a 1927 essay on fetishism. The founding father of psychoanalysis naturally interpreted women's feet and shoes – or at least the obsession with them – as substitutes for the missing female phallus, and some artists and fashion photographers play with this notion by producing images of high-heeled, phallic women.

And there you were, thinking that shoes were just shoes. Such simplicities are denied by the fact that the entry of women into the workplace in large numbers produced power suits, plain court shoes and shoulder pads in the 1980s – women trying to be like men. More recently, the pendulum has swung back, and it is not just footballers' wives who favour cleavage, long legs and impossibly high heels.

One of my brightest friends, an academic who heads a department at the university where she works, surprised us all last summer when she got out her holiday photos. There, alongside the wonderful views of beaches in Turkey, was the prize shot she had taken on the last day of her trip. It consisted simply of four pairs of her favourite shoes, neatly lined up on her hotel balcony.

There's no business like shoe business

Jimmy Choo reported a frenzy for smart shoes in 2002 when sales of the company's shoes went up by 40 per cent.

In the UK, we bought 350 million pairs of shoes in 2001, compared with 280 million in 1995 – an increase of 25 per cent.

Germaine Greer coined the phrase "fuck-me shoes" in 1995 when writing about the feminist columnist Suzanne Moore, whose fondness for "fuck-me shoes" was said to reveal her lack of real feminist beliefs. The verbal attack happened after Moore repeated false allegations that Greer had had a hysterectomy.

Twenty-eight per cent of women would rescue their favourite shoes from a fire.

Kristin Scott-Thomas chose a pair of Christian Louboutin mules as her luxury item on Desert Island Discs.

At the Conservative Party conference in 2002, Theresa May appeared on the platform in "hot-to-trot" leopard-print kitten heels from Russell & Bromley. As well as having spiky heels and a silky animal print, their leather soles are engraved with the words: "Welcome to paradise: too much is not enough". The shoes subsequently sold like hot cakes.

Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines and the world's best-known shoe-aholic, denied having 3,000 pairs of size eights stashed in the Malacanang Palace when she fled in 1986. "I did not have 3,000 pairs of shoes," she insisted, "I had 1,060."

The most popular shoes at Harvey Nichols are Stella McCartney's plastic shoes – for those who refuse to wear leather. There are 23 people on the waiting list for the plastic violet stiletto, which costs £195. And 17 people are waiting for the Balenciaga strappy buckle sandals, which have featured in Vogue and cost £415.

In her book Shoes, Linda O'Keefe claims 88 per cent of women buy shoes that are one size too small for them. "At the junction of fantasy and reality, women choose frivolity over fit," she writes.

Charlotte Cripps