Gala Darling, by name and by nature, recently penned this joyous little piece about unorthodox shoes and who might wear them; and, you know, it was so much fun, I had to write one of my own! I’m no shoe-xpert, so I indulged my fancy for antiques and took to the collectors’ collections and auction-houses with my quizzing-glass!

1850s Ivory & Snakewood Phrenology Cane.

Dr Horace Cornelius carries the tools of his profession in a massive black bag, carries his considerable bulk in a black frock-coat and carries his bushy black beard with no small measure of ferocious dignity. Diving his time between his several Conservative-minded London clubs and devoting as little to his practice as possible to maintain his crumbling townhouse, Dr Cornelius’s chief passions are bridge, bickering and falling asleep in his armchair.

1880s Beaded Plum-Coloured Boots.

Miss Marjorie, of Brighton, wears these shiny sparkly shoes with a cream linen skirt and a lilac basque when she and her brother sneak out on summer nights. While he smokes borrowed cigars and plays snooker, she dances along the boardwalks, alone in the gaslight, high-kicking at the moon.

1869 Belgian Apache Revolver.

An ugly man carries this ugly trinket. François Gris, of Montmartre, is usually seen about town in a dusty grey suit, a scarlet waistcoat, superfluous bicycle clips on his trousers, a cap on his head, a thorny rose at his breast and this combination weapon in his ticket pocket. He sits in shop stairwells reading a sou paperback (probably one actually illegal to sell or purchase) and obstructing traffic.

Compact, Date Unknown.

Lola Delarosa smudges smoky makeup around her eyes and tells everyone she’s the reincarnation of a fifth-century BC queen. She wears an Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks. At her parties, dinner is served in near-total darkness, and the room is slowly lit up by arrays of candles set in alcoves behind shadow-puppets as the guests take their places. Afterwards, everyone reads each others’ fortunes. Lola never lets anyone get a look at her palm; she read her own once, and now fears no-one would ever come visit her again if they saw’t.

Mid 19th-Century Paisley Shawl.

Mrs Henrietta Baker wears this with a golden pince-nez and a simple tweed skirt-suit while working through the museum archives for her thesis on mediaeval Continental architecture. She drinks big mugs of hot chocolate with some brandy snuck in, occasionally deliberately bumps into people in corridors so she can see how they react, and lets a smile break onto her perpetually distracted-looking features when she sees the local children playing on the statues on the front lawn.

1870 Patterned Boots.

Baroque punk’s not dead! By day, Jas Radical (Jasmine Radcliffe at home) works the desk at Madam C’s House of Pain. By night, she kicks around the town, laughing in windows and exploring open water-pipes. With these boots, she wears a chap’s leather motorcycling coat, grey knee-breeches tightly tucked into black gaiters and a homburg tipped so far to the side, she’s become an expert at catching it and tossing it back onto her head. Her watch-fobs read ‘FREE OSCAR’ and ‘THE EDISONIANS’.