From the high platform chopines of sixteenth-century Italy to the glamorous stilettos on today’s runways and red carpets, the exhibition looks at the high-heeled shoe’s rich and varied history and its enduring place in people’s imagination.

The high-heeled shoe has gone through constant style and symbolism changes throughout history. Seen as a fashion statement, a fetish object, an instrument of power, or as a mean of artistic expression for both designers and wearers, the high-heeled shoe is able to arise strong feelings towards itself.

Deadly sharp stilettos, architecturally inspired wedges and platforms, and a number of artfully crafted shoes that defy categorization are featured amongst more than 160 historical and contemporary heels on loan from designers, design houses and from other Museums. Loans came from the renowned Brooklyn Museum costume collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the worldwide known Bata Shoe Museum, as well as from Manolo Blahnik, Chanel, Salvatore Ferragamo, Zaha Hadid X United Nude, Iris van Herpen X United Nude, Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, André Perugia, Prada, Elsa Schiaparelli, Noritaka Tatehana, Vivienne Westwood, and Pietro Yantorny.

Presented alongside the objects in the exhibition are six specially commissioned short films inspired by high heels. The filmmakers are Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Zach Gold, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, Marilyn Minter, and Rashaad Newsome.

Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe is organized by Lisa Small, Curator of Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, and will be on display from the 10th September 2014 until the 15th February next year.

The Brooklyn Museum's collections were initially developed, in the early decades of the twentieth century, by curators Stewart Culin, Herbert Spinden and William Henry Goodyear, with the generous support of collectors and donors from Brooklyn and around the country. Continuing to build upon their pioneering work, the Brooklyn Museum has gathered one of the largest and most diverse collections in the United States. Its vast holdings range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world's principal cultures, reflecting the institution's long history of acquiring Western and non-Western art.

For more info about the exhibition please refer to the Brooklyn Museum website.