VANESSA, A WILLOWY 29-year-old in low-slung, belly-baring jeans, glides across the floor of Newbury Street’s Intermix on her tippy toes. "I walk like thiiiss," she purrs, demonstrating how she navigates the South End’s cobblestone streets in her favorite pointy black stiletto shoes. "And going out at night," Vanessa adds, expounding on the technique she employs to get from place to place, "it’s either a cab or a car." Looking at the heels on the shoes in this store — most notably, a knee-high Jimmy Choo boot with a three-inch, pencil-thin heel — it’s hard for me to imagine navigating even a quick trip from the curb to a chair. Forget shimmying; I’d lose it with the first dainty step.

Two months ago, culture mavens were declaring stiletto shoes as dead as irony. Impractical in such uncertain times, critics said, shaking their heads. But just as quick quips have edged back into our dialogue, high heels are finding renewed footing on the streets. In fact, at French Connection, there isn’t a shoe in the joint that doesn’t have a high, slim heel. And perhaps most interestingly, the higher they get, the more piqued the interest of many women. Call it a fashionable woman’s weapon: strapping on a decadent shoe is about defiant frivolousness, sexiness in the face of sorrow, and, well, not letting them win. "They just make every outfit look better," explains Vanessa, who can last as long as six hours on her toes.

Still, take a gander at one of these sculpted shoes, and "you think, ‘Gosh, who’s going to actually wear these?’ " notes BCBG store manager Jessica Mirabito, whose shop displays a series of stiletto boots in the $200 range, most with a triangular heel that widens as it closes in on the foot to increase stability. "But people love them. We actually just had a girl come in here and buy a pair and walk around all day at the museum."

Sure enough, many women are willing to risk limping later in order to enhance their leg lines now. And they’ll also happily absorb the cost of repeated trips to have the often-fragile shoes fixed when the heels snap off. "The shoe guy loves me," says Karen Fabbri, 27, of Beacon Hill’s new haven for women’s shoes, Moxie, lifting her foot to display a black stiletto ankle boot. The cobblestones around town, she says, have repeatedly severed the super-skinny heel. But the bills won’t stop her stiletto habit. "They’re fabulous," she says.

But what about those of us who are afraid of heights, who teeter and trip, who can only last about a block before calling it quits? "Oh," Fabbri quickly rebounds, "we’ll start you off small." She picks up a low-heeled, brown Cynthia Rowley with two camel Xs adorning the toe ($170). "And then," she adds with a glint in her eye, picking up a dark-brown Dibrera stiletto boot ($435) with a four-inch heel that tapers to a sliver, "you can work up to this."

Nina Willdorf can be reached at nwilldorf[a]phx.com

Where to find it:

• BCBG, 71 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 536-7182.

• French Connection, 100 Huntington Avenue, Boston, (617) 424-1819; 206 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 247-1301.

• Intermix, 186 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 236-5172.

• Moxie, 73 Charles Street No. 1A, Boston, (617) 557-9991.

Issue Date: December 6 - 13, 2001

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