The height of fashion

A staple of the countercultural 1970s and the clubbing 1990s, the platform sandal is more elegant and playful than ever – and ready for its season in the summer sun

Words by Alice Newbold

Platforms are the height of fashion again, with a host of brands bringing club-kid glamour bang up to date for now. It started, as is the way with most things fabulous, at Versace. The queen of vertiginous footwear, Donatella Versace, has been dialling up the drama with Medusa-emblazoned heels since the pandemic – when, arguably, everyone needed a little extra oomph. Her thick-soled mandate caught on and platforms were hailed the ultimate “re-emergence shoe” by an industry seeking an antidote to sweatpants.

Donatella is never one to be upstaged, so by the time everyone else was doing stacked stompers for spring/summer 2022, she had called on Naomi Campbell, Gigi Hadid, Dua Lipa and Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon to model her latest towering footwear proposition. (This, of course, is the woman who once said she treats fashion as a weapon.) Versace’s glitzy show, with its micro miniskirts and nostalgic motifs – including a safety-pin detail that called to mind Elizabeth Hurley’s famously risqué red-carpet dress – evoked the unabashedly sexy and playful mood of the 1970s.

The platform’s hedonistic heyday saw models Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin party hop from Studio 54 to the 21 Club in disco shoes made for dancing, and musicians such as David Bowie, Elton John and Mick Jagger command attention in androgynous heels that signalled gender fluidity long before that became a buzz phrase. By the time Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren set up Sex, their shop on the King’s Road in London, punk rockers were joining in the platform movement, teaming tartan and studded leather with creeper styles.

Proof that trends are circular came at the Brit Awards last year, when the platform’s new-age poster girl, Dua Lipa, performed in Westwood’s Ghillie heels – the superelevated shoes that Campbell made famous in 1993, when she tripped on the runway while wearing a purple pair. (The image of Campbell dusting herself off and putting her best foot forward made it into the V&A’s 2015 exhibition Shoes: Pleasure & Pain.) Along the way, the Spice Girls sparked soaring sales of Buffalo boots and Lady Gaga spent $295,000 on three pairs of Alexander McQueen’s Armadillo shoes to add to her vast platform collection.

This season’s supersized heels are less artsy, more sassy. At Gucci, platforms look both retro and modern when paired with old Hollywood-style suiting and seductive lingerie-inspired evening wear. At Saint Laurent, they’re dangerous with blazers worn as dresses and second-skin bodysuits, while the mood at Moschino is playful, with candy-coloured, campy minidresses. The rules? Stand tall – and, if you take a tumble, stride out again with the shoulders-back, head-up confidence of a supermodel.

Left: Versace’s vertiginous Medusa Music platform mules, available from mytheresa.com