A Closer Look at the $15.1 Million Debbie Wingham High Heels
Lily Wordsmith2 years ago
In the world of couture, there are few eccentrics known for their flashy creations like Debbie Wingham. She has been designing things since she was 13 years old. While this lovely mother of three began in fashion, she has since branched out into cakes as well. So, when you look at her $15 million heels and think they look like a sugary confection, you're right. Her genre-spanning interest in design is redefining what luxury means.
More Than Shoes
Debbie Wingham, who made the sweet-as-candy shoes, is perhaps best known for her Red Abaya Dress. This outrageous $17 Million dress has simple lines and flower details, and more diamonds than you could shake a platinum stick at. Debbie doesn't limit herself to one area of expertise. Instead, she is an expert at exquisite opulence. If you need an ultra-rare, glamorous and expensive version of something, Debbie Wingham is the woman to call. Among her most decadent creations are the worlds most expensive 'Easter Gift,' and a cake shaped like a UAE bride mannequin. The Easter creation is a part of her emu egg purse collection. It has eight-thousand diamonds and a clasp made of Cartier earrings. Moreover, it has an upcycled Hermes scarf. We love that she is promoting the art of upcycling. It takes her beyond the level of a forward-thinking designer and into the realm of a future-ready ecologically sound, creative dynamo.
The Future is Beautiful
Upcycling isn't the only contribution Debbie Wingham is making to change the future. After creating the worlds most expensive black diamond gown, with over fifty separate flawless black diamonds, Debbie decided she needed to take her art further, and share it. To that end, she created the Future of Fashion Academy to teach others how to develop and advance as artists and fashion designers. The focus is on creative outlet and confidence. Giving young designers the tools to create their own fashion futures is another significant way Debbie is focused on the forefront of fashion. Fashion Week is a huge part of being a designer, and the students of FOF are getting a chance to experience it first hand. The school is aimed at students who are seven to sixteen years old, and so far, more than five thousand of them have designed for and walked the runway at Fashion Week. Showing their design talent and having the guts to walk alongside supermodels and in front of the stars and elite fashion house designers who come to Fashion Week builds skills they will need and encourages young talent to mingle with the experienced artists and business-people in their industry.
Million Dollar Cakes
If you're wondering what a million dollar cake looks like, when it's not dressed up as a bride that is, the answer is truly anything you can imagine. Debbie Wingham has made cakes out of two Kardashians (Kim K and Kylie Jenner). Roulette wheels, diamond studded baked beauties, and a candy dispensing cake are all in a days work for this wild and wonderful designer. Debbie uses 3-D edible printing on details to stay ahead of the industry. For example, the face on her Kim Kardashian-West cake was all printed. Most of the rest was covered in carefully sculpted chocolate. Hand created edible details, and gemstones are her confection and cake signature pieces. Every exquisite detail has been designed and planned to perfection to give her clients that couture appeal they seek her out to get. In fact, her top tier cake is rumored to have sold for an astonishing $64 million.
The Sweetest Heels
If you plan to design the worlds most expensive pair of stiletto heels, they can't just look like any other heel out there. A black or red pump is not going to make the cut. Just look at Balenciaga's sneakers, or most of the gowns that walk the runways at any international Fashion Week show if you want to understand more about how to appeal to a high-class crowd. Debbie Wingham has her finger on the pulse of the glitterati and wealthy fashion lovers worldwide, especially in the United Arab Emirates where fashion and money seem like they're practically the same thing. When a (nameless) client came to her for a pair of birthday shoes for their daughter, Debbie knew that these could not be some off-the-rack heels like any girl might find in a high-end shop. If a customer wants Jimmy Choos they will buy a set of Jimmy Choos. After all, there's nothing wrong with gorgeous and posh shoes that are not one-of-a-kind, especially if it saves us millions of dollars, but that's a different high-fashion story altogether.
It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right
Making the most outrageous shoes on earth is not a solo sport. In order to make her shoes a reality Debbie Wingham called contemporary artist Chris Campbell from the USA in to help with the project. The two created a pair of heels that is literally staggering and completely unique. The zips and plaque underneath the shoes are made from solid 18k gold. The stitching is an 18k gold thread, and even the leather is painted in real 24k gold paint using a true-golden and rose-gold for contrast. Debbie contributed to design, and Chris did the crafting, which took hundreds of hours.
The quilted leather is adorned with piped details, just as you might expect on a cake. The sweet effect is both bold and charming in its appeal. The flowers on each toe are handcrafted Arabian Jasmine made from fine leather. A thousand pointer diamonds are just the beginning of the ice-ing on these shoes. The heels have one-carat blue diamonds and three-carat pink diamonds in addition to four flawless 3k white diamonds, all set in platinum.
We can only hope that whatever beloved woman received these special shoes loves them as much as the creators clearly loved making them. They are decidedly the most elegant shoes on earth that still manage to resemble a confection. Would you wear these heels? We would.
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