This story is part of Ensemble's fashion week coverage, supported by Viaduct Harbour

They’re bright, big and bold, and have been a very visible part of the NZ Fashion Week experience: the 2.5m tall Resene high heels that have sat outside the venue for the past five years, begging to be sat in.

They have garnered both a deep obsession, and jaded eye-rolls; a fun and joyful photo opportunity and a symbol of the stiletto wearing, Champagne quaffing stereotype that plagues the fashion world. They are a showcase of the power of corporate sponsorship in creative endeavours. They are a pair of huge heels, but have come to represent much more.

An event the size of NZFW can only exist with the support of many sponsors and partners, and often that involves brand activations at the venue – like Resene’s heels, which first took their place outside of the venue in 2014 and have been at every NZFW since.

Resene’s involvement in the high-profile event began in 2012, as a way to showcase and promote their fashion colour ranges; supporting the public facing Designer Selection shows (they were attracted to fashion from a wider perspective, says the brand’s marketing manager Karen Warman, because it has “always been quite a good indicator of paint trends” and “your wardrobe is actually a really big inspiration for what you use in your house”). 

The heels were a way to push that embrace of colour further: the shades of said shoes have changed each year; sometimes with a dripping effect but always two different shades (fun fact: they’re not a pair. “They're actually both the same foot,” explains Warman). 

“The colours were always designed to be a combination of something that was on trend, something that was bright and bold and then something was kind of a cheeky name as well,” she says. Think ‘Irresistible’ (pink), ‘Spotlight’ (yellow), or ‘Daredevil’ (orange).

It’s also, mostly, a great public photo opportunity; almost like a fashion week rite of passage to have your photo taken next to it, or have it boldly appear in the distance in the background. Like any public facing display, it encourages interaction – which has always been the point. “At one event they roped them off to ‘protect the shoe’, and we were like, ‘no, no, we want people to climb in it’,” says Warman. 

“I think the funniest [interaction] was a few years ago: someone had this small child who used it as a slide,” she reflects. “The people that sit in the shoe are not necessarily the people you predict you would sit in the shoe.”

The heels were originally created for Resene for a Fashion in the City event run by Auckland’s Heart of the City, to be plonked around the city. “We were looking for something big to display, and were looking at things like giant coat hangers, a handbag,” says Warman.

They were made by Bootleg, an Auckland-based company that specialises in creating big, random things. They made the cheeky Santa that sits atop Ponsonby Central at Christmas, a giant piece of toast for the Food Show earlier this month, a huge whitebait fritter prop for an Auckland Museum display, the popsicle people at the Tip Top factory - you get the idea (their Facebook is delightful and worth a peruse).

Bootleg already had a mould for a giant stiletto, having previously made some in 2010 for a Woman’s Day magazine event. And proving that Auckland is indeed tiny: one of those former heels can now be found atop Karangahape Road institutional Caluzzi, a beacon of pride and pink glamour, and reportedly featured at one of the first lesbian weddings in New Zealand.

Away from fashion week, Resene’s heels have been displayed outside the Albany mall, outside TVNZ when Project Runway NZ was screening and even been turned into extremely random and unofficial merch. They’re also classic Auckland fashion girlies, having only left the city once for an event in Wellington. “That was a bit of a mission,” says Warman.

She says they each weigh around 800kg, weighted down at the bottom so “they've got to be specially moved, they can't just be picked up and shifted. Once they're where they are, they're where they are.”

But this year, as NZFW returns after a four year hiatus with a new owner and management team and let’s be honest, in a very different ‘post’-Covid fashion landscape, the infamous oversized heels will be staying put, in storage. There’s less space outside of the NZFW venue, and other partners being showcased. Also: sneakers are cooler now anyway.