Girl About Globe | If the shoe fits

Linda Kennedy

A high-heeled fight is on the horizon. Between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
At stake: becoming THE destination for female tourists in Asia. Get it on. The fight, the shoe, the both of them.
But let’s start at the beginning. Think Taiwan, and chances are you don’t immediately arrive at ‘foot fetishist and fashion trailblazer’. Think again. Taiwan now has an immense high-heeled shoe. It’s 17 metres tall and made of glass. It’s blue, a tricky colour for most outfits, but I guess it goes nicely with the sky. It’s in the southwest of the island, and it dominates the horizon.
You look and think: what IS that? CinderellaLand, a theme park for women?
Or a sculpture thrown up to mark the election of Tsai Ing-Wen? With additional sponsorship from The Philippines to finally offload that Imelda Marcos shoe association?
Or the studio of a shoemaker all Western women should know about, because it’s really hard to get big sizes in Asia?
Enough pondering. It’s a statue – shall we say statshoe?–  to honour local women who suffered from gangrenous foot disease. Yes really. And it’s a venue, aiming at the wedding market. Yes, still really, which seems odd. Aside from foot fetishists, would anyone want to wed inside a homage to diseased-feet? A union inside a bunion?  I think not.
But let’s face it: not many places put up sculptures to honour women. Most statues recognize bloke travails.
So, well done on that front, Taiwan – one day you may be as known for your feminism as your street-food. But that’s not where it ends.
The potential for this shoe is enormous, which is usually how most women justify buying a new pair, but such optimism should here be felt by cities. Like Macau. Like Hong Kong. Can our city mothers – city fathers just won’t get the shoe thing – think out of the box, shoe-nap the concept and become the city for female shoppers in Asia? Let’s kick this concept around a bit – gently, to avoid scuffing.
There was a recent survey, reported in this newspaper, about online shopping challenging local retailers. At the same time, we are frequently told that sister shopping SAR Hong Kong is no longer cool, because the stores there are not enough fun for mainlanders with money to spend.
Here, then, Taiwan’s architectural foot fetishism starts to suggest real possibilities. There are world famous structures in Macau which dominate the skyline – why not add a shoe? Beside the Macau Tower, The Stiletto? 17 metres, I concede, isn’t enough for serious retail space, but enlarge the design. Make it big enough and the shoe-shape could rival L’Arc de Triomphe, or McDonald’s as the world’s most famous arch. Or there could even be several of these shoes. Some standing, some lying askew on their side: the entire retail complex known as The Shoe Cupboard.
Imagine going shopping IN A SHOE! Women love shoe-shopping. Oh my. It would engender huge excitement – enough to get people to actually visit, hang out under the arch, meet each other by the pointy toe bit – thereby undermining online shopping.
Or, Hong Kong? Not cool, you say? What could get mainland women more excited than a lift going up a heel? And an MTR station inside a platform, rather than just having one.
More obvious yet, take the basic concept, lower the heel height and turn the whole shoe/retail emporium into A Hello Kitten Heel Retail Plaza. Hello Chinese mainland visitors.
Which city will become the talked-about destination for women in Asia? It’s a case of ‘if the shoe fits…’