Designers, Gisele Will Refuse To Wear Your Insane Ankle-Breaker High Heels

Balenciaga creative director Nicholas Ghesquière says that when Gisele Bündchen (pictured here in Balenciaga’s seasonal campaign), Amber Valletta, and Carolyn Murphy refused to wear his high heels, he decided to design some flat shoes. We’re picturing some kind of supermodel superdelegate triad descending on the Balenciaga headquarters, and laying down the law for Spring ’11. Ghesquière has always favored elaborate, sky-high heels, but he came to realize the shoes were causing his models pain. “When I saw the show and I saw how [the heel height] makes them very mechanical, I understood sometimes the pain on the feet,” he explains. “It’s old to have those girls walking like that, so I tried to stop that craziness.” Also, Amber, Carolyn, and Gisele, “they said no for high heels. They were not used to walking with heels anymore. Gisele was worried; she would not walk with my heels.” So he made flats. For one season! At its very next runway show, Fall 2011, Balenciaga was back to the 4.5-inchers. “They were a bit too high,” says Ghesquière, before adding, wistfully we imagine, “They were beautiful.” In other news of Nicholas Ghesquière actually taking some of what his models tell him into consideration, the best-selling (and frequently knocked off) Balenciaga “Lariat” motorcycle bag almost never made it into production. Ghesquière was asked to consider producing a couple bags under license, and none of the production prototypes pleased the executives — but one bag made an impression on Balenciaga’s models. “Every girl who was walking [the show], including Kate [Moss] came in and was like, ‘What is that? Is it vintage? Is it something that you found at the flea market?’ I was like ‘No, it’s a handbag that we prototyped but just didn’t produce.’ We didn’t produce it because I think when I showed the prototype to the people who asked me to do it, they weren’t happy with it.” And do you remember those “Sportiletto” plastic multi-colored sandals from 2007? They broke the mold. Literally: Ghesquière says that the molds used to make them exploded more than once during the design process. [WWD]