Roopal Patel, senior fashion accessories editor for Neiman Marcus, hit the mark during a customer lunch with shoe designer Bruno Frisoni last month:

"God created a special emotion," she said, "for when women walk into a shoe store."

It's the same emotion that led Beverly Hills resident Renges Fabris to construct a special cabinet for her footwear collection, designed so that when the doors open, the song "If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right" starts to play.

Fabris knows exactly why, like so many other women, she adores shoes.

"I can wear the same outfit, the same Levis, as long as I have different shoes," she said at the recent opening party for the new Christian Louboutin store in West Hollywood. She had already taken home seven pairs of Louboutins from the fall collection but had her eye on a pair of hot pink, patent leather, peep-toe platform "Barbie shoes" from the holiday collection.

Such a passion may seem extreme. But with the economy limping toward recovery, shoe sales are beginning to rebound, thanks in no small part to exciting shoe design.

"Women are reaching back to footwear to step forward," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for market research firm NPD Group. "It's pent-up demand; it's frugal fatigue. And footwear is one of the areas women consider investment wardrobing." In the women's footwear market, sales for the three-month period ending in August were down almost 5% from the same period last year. But sales for the three-month period ending in September were down less than 1%, indicating that the numbers are almost back to where they were a year ago, according to NPD research.

While shoppers are embracing a back-to-basics attitude about most spending, what is generating excitement in the footwear category is extreme shoes. Kinky styles that might once have been the hallmark of a lady for hire are elevated on hockey-puck-like platforms and pin-thin heels, studded and buckled like bondage gear. And they come at various price points -- $1,400 over-the-knee boots at Nordstrom, $1,195 Balmain multi-buckle booties at Fred Segal Feet, $149.90 open-toed and studded Steve Madden booties at Zappos.com and $129 studded gladiator sandals at Zara.

"From a fashion standpoint, heels are getting higher and higher, and platforms are getting bigger and bigger," says Mark Goldstein, who operates six Madison boutiques in the Los Angeles area, selling shoes and clothes by such high-end designers as Yves Saint Laurent and Balmain.