Praying at the Shoe Altar

National Geographic, of all places, has a special feature on the Joy of Shoes in its September issue. Of particular interest to Izzy’s readers is an article on the woman behind Berluti shoes, who found her calling through a true epiphany:

Olga Berluti loves men’s feet—a passion, not a fetish, she says. The passion began with her convent schooling in Italy. A long corridor led to the chapel and a 14th-century statue of Christ. “I would approach the altar,” she remembers. “The nailed feet of Christ were exactly on the same level as my eyes. I stared and stared. I said to myself: When I am older, I will remove the nails. I will relieve the suffering of men’s feet.”

Shoe-lovers should be mighty thankful regarding the positioning of that statue. Had it been much lower, signora Berluti might have become a world-class glover instead of a cordwainer.