"I will literally think, 'Do I spend $600 on shoes or get new plumbing?' " says Carlota Espinosa, vice president of online sample sale retailer HauteLook.com. "They keep raising prices to see if people will pay more. And there's no law that says they can't."
Nor is there any way to justify the steady and exponential boost in price. Cohen traces the trend back to 2002, when everyone was crying foul over $300 jeans. "Denim stole all the attention, so no one noticed that footwear prices were quietly rising," he says. "The retailers saw that women were passionate about shoes and looked at footwear as an investment."
Pumping up prices
SUNSET PLAZA boutique owner Tracey Ross felt the sting about five years ago. "When Chloe came on the scene, I remember noticing it," she recalls. "All of a sudden, every line started designing a shoe collection that was more elaborate and more expensive." That's about the time that Lanvin entered the scene.
Simultaneously, the dollar started to atrophy, which drove prices up even more. Because the best shoes are made in Italy, U.S. retailers take a bath when buying and importing European footwear.
"Right now, everything from the price of leather to factory costs are about 20% more because of the euro," says Neil Weilheimer, executive editor of Footwear News. "The prices have been creeping up, but we're seeing the most dramatic increases because of it now."
The dollar is at a five-year low against the euro, but a euro on steroids isn't solely to blame. Thanks to "Sex and the City" character Carrie Bradshaw -- the patron saint of footwear fanatics -- shoe designers have become demigods. Even bachelors in Duluth, Minn., know the name "Manolo" and certain people can probably pronounce "Christian Louboutin" more easily than "Albert Camus."
Some blame Louboutin for spiking prices. Even his sequined ballet flats sell for $880.
"He started the trend when he introduced the platform," says John Rutenberg, who recently retired from Barneys in Beverly Hills after 15 years as a shoe sales associate. "He wanted to pull ahead of Manolo Blahnik, and his platform sold for $395 in 2004. Now, it costs $730."
Louboutin -- who fetches up to $2,700 for a pair of crystal-studded pumps -- refuses to take the blame for footwear inflation.
"This is not in the hands of the designers," he says from Paris. "It's the retailers. If Neiman's or Barneys decide that people are used to spending $700 on a pair of pumps, why would they lower that price?"
