There is a fabulous article on expensive shoes over at Forbes. I never knew 1% of all shoes sales are for shoes over $1,000. That is so very cool. I need a few pairs or Richard Vivier’s (they only cost $14,000 dollars, or more than most of the cars I owned in my twenties!0

Without those glass slippers, Cinderella would still be sweeping the fireplace, and Prince Charming would be in the middle of a nasty divorce from one of her step-sisters. Deprived of her bejeweled pumps, Dorothy would be stranded in Oz. And the old lady who lived in her shoe? Well, she probably would have been better off investing in real estate than in a broken-down old boot.

The female shoe has always been an object of fascination, endowed with mythical power. And, as women from former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos (who possessed 1,200 pairs of shoes) to Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw (who one episode realized she’d spent $40,000 on footwear, yet couldn’t afford an apartment) have shown, some women are willing to spend fortunes to be properly shod.

American women spent nearly $17 billion on fashion footwear between October 2004 and October 2005, according to The NPD Group, a retail and consumer information company based in Port Washington, N.Y. If that sounds like a lot, it should–it’s a nearly 10% increase over 2003 spending

Most Expensive Women’s Shoes - Forbes.com.