Shoe heels go glitzy in hard times

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NEW YORK, April 18 (UPI) -- When times get tough "heels get even more fanciful" as shoe designers put nails, pistons and chandelier trim in the heels, experts say.

"The more depressing it becomes in the real world, the more extreme heels become," writes Camilla Morton, author of "How to Walk in High Heels." "It's empowering to have a bit of frivolity on our feet."

The spring collections trying to make it down runways feature $895 Sapphire shoes with rusty-nail heels and $1,420 hot-pink sandals by Louis Vuitton with an aluminum engine piston, or an $1,985 offering from the collection from the late Alexander McQueen that has an 8-inch hinged industrial-metal heel, The New York Post reported Sunday

"High heels make us feel like Cinderella," Morton writes. "When we wear them, we believe in the happily ever after. When it's not-so-happily ever after, the heels get even more fanciful."

But not everyone is buying it.

"They are all so ugly," Lauren Wilk, 26, said during a window-shopping stroll in New York's West Village. "I would never wear any of them."