Surrealism may be in the air, thanks to the revival of the house of Schiaparelli, which opens its historic doors on Place Vend?me for the first time in decades this weekend, just ahead of couture week in Paris. But it is experiencing something of a revival on the ground, too. Forget the stiletto, the wedge or the stacked heel: this season’s shoes are supported by dancing figurines, upturned lipstick tubes and even butterfly wings. There is fun to be had blurring the lines between art and fashion. Look down, and you never know what you will see.

“There is definitely something exciting in the ‘collectables’ that footwear designers are offering this season,” says Pam Brady, accessories buyer at Browns, the London-based fashion boutique. “Designers are offering the customer something of worth, which is collectable, significant and most certainly a talking point for the wearer and those in proximity.”

Italy’s Alberto Guardiani, for example, offers the Lipstick Heel (￡311): an upturned lipstick on a simple black pump. “It is from the heel that the last, the shoe’s shape, is made but it is also from the heel that the shoe’s magic blossoms in a way that only a woman’s shoe can,” says the designer, who will add the Flutterby design to his line for autumn/winter. These red suede pumps with sculpted butterfly heels were designed by 28-year-old advertising creative Lady San Pedro, and first came to light following a competition staged by Guardiani and i-D, the British style magazine, last year.