Walking down the most rarified stretch of Madison Avenue last night, between 79th and 68th Streets, I caught sight of these shoes on a small, spinning platform in the window at Christian Louboutin and stopped in my tracks.  Amid storefronts peddling paintings, antique furniture, designer gowns, jewelry, and other massively expensive stuff, this pair had a hot, supernatural glow.

The Lady Peeps, as they’re called, might have been concocted, Frankenstein-like, from all the different things that makes a woman’s shoe sexy: swaggering height, a pointed heel,  figure-emulating curves, dazzling surfaces, and, most of all, a hooker-red sole, which Louboutin is trying, unsuccessfully, to patent.  I know at least one girl (well, actually, a boy) who spray paints the bottoms of bargain-store heels to get the effect.  Would anyone wear these shoes, except on a red carpet, or except Lady Gaga?  If, for a woman at least, each shoe is a balance of function and desire, than Lady Peeps approach pure desire.