For shoe designer Richard Braqo, it’s time to celebrate Well Heeled Women – aka the women who inspire his work, and in turn the women who’ve inspired them (in heels or flats!) His newly launched campaign follows the fourth season from the bespoke Italian footwear label, and will comprise a series of films featuring brand ambassadors discussing the women they most admire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcYUodCRPV4

The series’ inaugural release showcases Vanessa Kingori, publisher of GQ, and Charlotte Rey, creative director of Campbell-Rey, both shot in cinematic black-and-white. Kingori, sporting her namesake Vanessa brogue, details her reverence for Josephine Baker. “She was a great beauty and really celebrated in a time when women like her just weren’t celebrated,” Kingori comments, adding, “She was a great thinker, incredibly intelligent, a risk-taker as well as being beautiful, feminine, sexual.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XWK3z0OOHc

To Rey, in her Charlotte slingbacks, seeing Grace Jones perform live was a transformative experience; she says, “I was just mesmerised with her talent, and her performance, and how much she seemed to enjoy it, and how in control she was over her artistic outlet and her artistic expression.” And both women’s introduction to the venerable high heel? Tottering around in their mothers’ collections whilst young enough to be in Velcro slip-ons.

Of the campaign, Richard Braqo explains, “I decided to start this film series and campaign to highlight the achievements of the types of women that inspire my work and have long since named each of my shoes after women I have admired, worked with and have come to know and respect. The Well Heeled Women (#WHW) campaign is in essence an homage to these women and the women that inspired them to reach the lengths that they have, paving the way one step at a time.”

Well, we don’t know about you, but now we’re certainly feeling like taking on Thursday in our size 5s.