Clear heels, usually called stripper shoes in the trade, are built so the foot and the platform look suspended in air. The shoe is transparent. The open, see-through construction started as a staple of exotic dance, porn wardrobe, and nightclub dress, then leaked into celebrity street style and onto fashion-week runways. For adults who want fetish footwear or performance wear, the same acrylic shape carries pole-stage tension and the tease of adult film.
Designers cast heels and platforms in polycarbonate, PVC, lucite, and acrylic resin. Beside the plain clear styles, novelty versions seal flashing lights, colored liquid, or even small fish inside the heel or the platform, party and stage gags that give people something to talk about. Transparency also fakes a line: a ballet-style clear shoe can sell the look of standing on tiptoe, or en pointe, without a full opaque shoe body. The styles that actually dominate the market are the blatant ones. Very high heels, thick platforms, ankle straps, maximum shine, aimed at dancers and fetish wearers. Pleaser and Luscious lead the online stripper-shoe catalogs.
The fashion status of the shoe turned in 2009, when New York Magazine flagged the look as a trend for the Spring 2010 shows and pointed at Milan styling from Dsquared2, Prada, and Fendi. High fashion put a gloss on them. It did not cut the link to erotic performers and porn. Celebrities who wore the trend in public sometimes got criticized for looking like strippers. Actress and singer Taylor Momsen said in an interview that she liked performing in a pair with a tip slot. Fans stuffed money in until the shoes filled with bills, stage tipping and the footwear in the same object. Coverage and pop culture list Carmen Miranda, Beyoncé, John Fuqua, Taylor Momsen, Helen Mirren, Disco Stu, Courtney Stodden, Kim Kardashian, and Marina Diamandis among people who have worn them.
