A funny thing happens if you hang around in the trend cycle a while. Take the gladiator sandal, for example. Since its last revival in the mid-2000s, the style's never exactly gone away. It just dropped off the runway and began a 10-year stint as the official footwear of festival girls everywhere. Now that high-end designers like Valentino and Stuart Weitzman are making the sandals again, mass market brands are doubling down on the style that they never really stopped selling — by offering bigger and bolder takes on the trend. Which is how, we suppose, these boots came to be.
Created by the inimitable Jeffrey Campbell, and available for purchase at Nasty Gal, the "Blinded Thigh-High Heel" makes us feel...very blinded indeed. Just look at all that gleaming faux-leather, stretching clear from toe to thigh. Yes, they are magnificent — but also, we would argue, useful for certain types of people. Six, to be exact.
For example, say you were extremely moved by The Force Awakens trailer, and you want to do the smart thing and get a jump on your C-3PO costume for Halloween 2016 (or, your robot-from-Metropolis costume if you're a film snob classicist). Look no further than these boots and those lamé leggings Dov Charney hoodwinked us all into buying in 2007. Oh, I'm sorry, you don't speak Swahili? I had you confused with a protocol droid fluent in over six million forms of communication.
Or, say you are a reincarnated warrior princess from the legendary Seven Cities of Gold, and your body would violently reject shoes of any other color, or of less-regal bearing. Or, say you got drunk one night and had these kooky eyeballs tattooed on your thigh, and you think it'd be really funny if they had 30 tiny, golden window blinds to peek out of. Or, say you are a humanoid-insect created by architect of nightmares H.R. Giger, and you need boots that flex along with your highly articulated legs. Or, say you want to be that girl at the all-white party. Or, say you think five-strap sandals are for quitters.
Clearly, there are countless reasons why you need these boots. You should probably just go buy them right now.