High-heels can be liberating for women, adding height, improving posture and suggesting a sexy identity. On the other hand, high-heeled shoes can also be seen as instruments of confinement and torture, historically related to the crippling tradition of foot-binding women which started in China thousands of years ago.

That was one of the ideas dancing in my head when I got a glimpse of this footgear, which won first prize in the “Shoemania” design competition which took place last week in conjunction with the Nordic Shoe and Bag Fair in Stockholm. Contest victors Tove Jansson and Per Emanuelsson also created men’s loafers encased in metal chains, which symbolically express exactly how I feel when forced by some silly social convention to wear stiff, shiny dress shoes which pinch my toes.