Today marks what would be Marilyn Monroe‘s 99th birthday, and, even a century after her birth, her stamp on pop culture remains. The word icon is often thrown around, but there are few figures who embody it as fully as the blonde bombshell. Throughout her lifetime — and after her untimely death at the age of 36 in 1962 from a Barbiturate overdose— Monroe’s influence touched every facet of culture from film to TV, music, fashion, beauty, art, and perhaps less widely talked about: shoes.
Monroe’s legacy on the footwear industry lingers to this day with her likeness not only plastered across shoes and her name synonymous with a heel style, but also her relationship with shoes as both an everlasting museum exhibit subject and an inspiration for the runway.
Dolores Erikson in a Marilyn Monroe type pose and tight-fitting dress.
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To back up, it all began with Salvatore Ferragamo, who popularized the stiletto heel. While Monroe has been credited as one of the earliest pop culture cannon wearers of clear heels — lucite platforms with pink straps in the 1953 film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” — and Keds in 1952’s “Clash by Night,” her signature shoe was the Ferragamo pump.
Monroe achieved her unmistakable pinup silhouette in part with Ferragamo’s 4-inch high-heel pumps, specifically the Filetia and Viatica — seen in her 1959 classic “Some Like It Hot.” “I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot,” Monroe famously said.
An early publicity shot of Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson or Norma Jean Baker, 1926 – 1962).
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While Monroe reportedly never met Ferragamo, she was a regular at his Park Avenue store in New York City, where — after moving from Hollywood in 1954 — she…