Every great shoe starts with a great last—its unique shape and specific proportions help determine how each style will fit and feel. From there, original features, luxurious materials and fine craftsmanship make up the other components that elevate everyday footwear into truly iconic designs.
Inspired by the search for a beautiful heel that offers comfort and style in equal parts, Kiki Price founders Lucy Price and Kim Baltzell spent many months designing and refining the perfect shoe last for their new footwear brand. Working with Vito and Martina Pecora, the talented father and daughter duo behind Vito Pecora Studio Design in the Tuscany region of central Italy, Price and Baltzell developed a distinctive, design-forward last for Kiki Price heels that would incorporate brand co-founder—and foot and ankle surgeon—Dr. Richard M. Jay’s innovative footbed insole with an elegant, surprisingly sleek shoe silhouette.
“The last comes first, always,” says Martina Pecora. “From the last, we start to create all the other components: the insole, the heel, the pattern, the outsole, and all the machine work.”
For Vito Pecora—who has, since 1981, worked for and collaborated with many of the top footwear and fashion brands in the world, including Prada, Max Mara and Emilio Pucci—the project with Kiki Price represented an exciting, novel opportunity to tackle an interesting design challenge within the luxury footwear realm. “The comfort of a shoe is not only about the heel height, but also the volume and the curve of the last,” says Martina Pecora, translating for her father. “For this project, we had to balance the aesthetics of the shoe with the technical requests from Dr. Jay. Combining these two properties was a big, and exciting, challenge for us.”
It took multiple iterations, and many Zoom calls, for the Vito Pecora studio team to perfect a custom shoe last for Kiki Price that would allow for an attractive, 75mm heeled shoe that is also comfortable enough to be worn for hours on end. Anatomically correct and highly supportive, each Kiki Price shoe features a patented, curved insole and shock-absorbing Technogel pad inserts at the heel and forefoot. The winning result? An exceptionally comfortable heel that doesn’t compromise on style or aesthetics.
Designed with elegance and wearability at top of mind, Kiki Price shoes are also exquisitely made—thanks to Vito Pecora’s decades of experience and extensive fashion industry contacts, the independent label shares suppliers and factories with some of the top designer fashion brands in the world, ensuring unparalleled craftsmanship and product quality.
Expertly crafted by a third-generation manufacturer near Florence that has been producing luxury footwear since 1951, the heels in the Kiki Price collection feature high quality suede and leather sourced from nearby, leading Italian tanneries. Even the lurex thread embroidery on the brand’s pretty Love Wins shoe is done by a well-regarded company in the charming San Mauro Pascoli village in the Italian countryside.
Too often, women’s designer footwear is either stylish or comfortable, but not both. Kiki Price upends that expectation by offering beautiful, Italian artisan-crafted heels that are a true delight to wear—and look at!
