Night Porter: a celebration of shoes

It was perfectly fitting that hot on the heels of Milan Fashion Week’s buzziest show – Bottega Veneta (source of this year’s It shoe, the square-toed sandal) – that the fashion set should descend en masse upon Net-A-Porter’s Milan Fashion Week cocktail party, celebrating the joy of fabulous footwear.

And sure enough, there were plenty of sleek Bottega square-toes and quilted leather sliders on display among the beautifully-shod guests mingling in the olive-tree strewn courtyard and cool bare-bricked spaces of Six Gallery (a former monastery turned design venue).

Beneath a fantastical chandelier, bedecked with a jewel-like array of the season's snappiest party heels, faces from the art and philanthropy crowd (Italian Fashion Trust co-chair Umberta Gnutti Beretta and fashion tech fairy godmother Sofia Barattieri) mingled with some of the rock stars of the shoe-making world, including Giuseppe Zanotti and Aquazzura’s Edgardo Osorio, plus designers Dodo Bar Or and Sara Battaglia.

Nibbling sautéd squares of saffron-infused risotto milanese and sipping Aperol and Campari cocktails, guests chatted up a storm as they lined up to pose in the mirrored ‘shoe closet’ photo booth. PORTER Trend Report star Chloé Harrouche (wearing Giuseppe Zanotti kitten-heeled mules) extolled the transformational power of a shoe to energize and reinvent your look: “really, they are magic!”

Fellow blogger Xenia Adonts, dressed in velvet Isabel Marant and Prada heels, agreed: “I love shoes because I can wear the most plain outfit, the most boring outfit, and shoes will always spice it up.” While Caro Daur, dressed head to toe in Acne, confessed her relationship with footwear came down to one word: comfort. “Like the Aquazzura shoes I wear every day on my blog, I believe you should invest in quality shoes for your health!”

And when the clock struck 10pm, Milan being Milan, late-night dinner called… So as DJ Silvia Bergomi spun her last tunes, the fabulously shod crowd clicked their heels and tripped off into the warm Milan night.