Review by QC Humphrey
The Santoni offices are located in a place of honor in the famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, Italy. As I walked outside onto the balcony, my view over looked the Men’s Prada store. I stepped back inside and wandered over to a group of display cases housing Santoni’s fall 2019 collection. The designs were encased under glass, protected similarly like museum works of art. The reason for the extraordinary display was to set the stage for a fictional shoe auction. There were four lots, totaling 18 pairs of shoes.
The Italian auctioneer introduced each design sharing the backstory of how it’s made and what “celebrity” (an actor in the audience) has worn the shoe. As far as a typical fashion week presentation goes, the atmosphere was unique, dynamic and full of fun.
As I watched from the corner I listened as the “auction” price of one pair of shoes started at three hundred euro.
The next bidder raised the price to four hundred, another bidder followed with five and then it jumped to eight.
The auctioneer played along appearing taken back when a gorgeous Italian lady with the perfect orange skirt and grey hair said, “Uno Mille” (one thousand Euros). The room burst with a gasp, I stood there thinking that was the highest bidder for the shoe. But at the last moment, another woman raised her card and said four mille. The lady in orange smiled and to my surprise and everyone else’s, said six.
Although the auction was fictional it felt real with all the energy and enthusiasm one would expect.
