The True Story of the Zap Pow Shoe

In 2006, Terry donated 21 pairs of plain canvas wedges and one pair of stiletto-heeled canvas boots to the Chelsea Arts Club. These were then hand-adorned by various artists, including Allen Jones (the boots), Sir Peter Blake, David Shrigley, Sarah Lucas, Christian Furr, and Ralph Steadman, for the club’s annual charity auction. Entitled “F**k Me Shoes!”, the burlesque show and charity auction was held on 29th June 2006. It was an absolute riot and a story for another time…

I needed something to wear to the auction, so Terry and I decided to make me a pair of Terry’s signature spring-o-lator “Leila” mules in plain canvas and have a go at painting them. We decided to do them in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, figuring that we’d be able to come up with something that wasn’t too challenging. Terry sketched out the basic shape of the surface design onto the shoes, which I then fine-tuned and hand-painted.

We absolutely loved them and soon found out that night that everybody else seemed to as well. There were a lot of “I need a pair in my life” comments going on, and we realised we’d created one of those Terry de Havilland “future retro classics” as we used to call his designs.

We decided that we had to put them into our bespoke, made-to-order collection but needed to find a way to simplify how to produce them.

Having discovered how hard it was to paint the shoes once they were made, we chose instead to paint them onto flat canvas, using paper templates as markers, before they were closed (stitched) and covered. We altered the surface decoration and tidied it up a bit. The prototype pair had the words “POW” and “POP” on the vamps (that’s the front part of the shoe – great name, eh?) and “POW” and “WOW” on the heels. Terry decided to change these to read “POP” and “ART” on the heels and “ZAP” and “POW” on the vamps.

We made a pair for me so that we could test how they would stand up to the making process. Joy of joys, they survived perfectly, and it was “game on".

And thus, the Zap Pow shoe was born.