A kitten heel is a short, slender heel, usually from 3.5 centimeters (1.5 inches) to 4.75 centimeters (1.75 inches) high with a slight curve setting the heel in from the edge of the shoe. The style was popularized by Audrey Hepburn.

Kitten heels are small heels of 4.75 centimeters or less in height; some are as low as 3 centimeters. They are classified as stiletto heels and despite their lack of height are generally classified as high heels because of their sex appeal, particularly when teamed with a sharp-pointed toe or long winklepicker toe. This is an anomaly because a shoe or pump with regular wide heels of 1.5 inches high would be considered a flat shoe; it is the addition of a stiletto heel, however short, that turns it into a sexual accessory.

They were introduced in the late 1950s as formal fashion attire for young adolescent teenage girls as higher heels would have been considered unseemly for girls as young as 13 because of the sexual connotations and unease of walk. They were sometimes referred to as "trainer heels" in the US, indicating their use in getting young girls used to wearing high heels. However, by the early 1960s, they became fashionable for older teenagers and eventually for women of all ages until the demise of the stiletto heel in the late 1960s. They emerged again in the 1980s along with wedge heels and have become once again fashionable since 2003, but are not made in abundance due to the preference for Stiletto heels by women during this time period. Manolo Blahnik has added kitten heeled shoes to his collection, saying that his famous high stilettos have been so often copied that he was inspired to create a heel at a new, shorter height.

Vince Camuto, CEO/Chief Creative Officer of the fashion company Camuto Group, is an American women’s footwear designer who is known for co-founding and establishing Nine West Inc. as a leading women’s fashion brand.

In 1978, Camuto co-founded the Nine West Group Inc., and served as its creative director . Over the next two decades, Nine West became a household fashion brand – recognized internationally. In 1993 Vince was appointed CEO as the company was taken public. In 1999, Nine West was sold to Jones Apparel Group as a multi-branded footwear powerhouse.

In August 2001, Camuto established Camuto Group, which provides design, sourcing, marketing and production services to over 5400 department and independent retailers throughout the world.

In 2002 Vince Camuto launched four exclusive footwear brands for Dillard’s Department Stores, including Antonio Melani, Gianni Bini, Nurture and Michelle D. Expanding on that success, Vince introduced an additional three brands in subsequent years, leading to seven unique collections. Later that year, he acquired the footwear licenses for BCBG Max Azria and BCBGirls and developed these footwear lines.

Anne Klein (August 3, 1923 - March 19, 1974) was an American fashion designer who founded her own women's sportswear and apparel label.

Anne Klein was born as Hannah Golofski to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York on August 3, 1923. She studied art at Girls' Commercial High School in Brooklyn and later went to the Traphagen School of Design in New York from 1937 to 1938 to study fashion. She married her first husband, Ben Klein, in the early 1940s, and together they founded Junior Sophisticates – a clothing company which completely transformed the clothing styles, choices, and attitudes of young American women. The company revolutionized the junior market, doing away with the traditional "little-girl" clothing that featured button-and-bow detailing, and addressing the primary need of this important group—the desire to look more stylish, more polished, and, above all, more grown up.

Beginning as a sketcher she later rose to prominence as a designer of women's sportswear and apparel, establishing Anne Klein and Co. with fashion guru Gunther Oppenheim in 1968. Klein died of breast cancer on March 19, 1974 at age 50.

Lillian Pulitzer Rousseau (born Lillian Lee McKim on November 10, 1931), better known as Lilly Pulitzer, is a socialite and prominent fashion designer. She is known for founding Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., which produces clothing and other wares featuring bright, colorful, floral prints. Because the brand has been very popular with high society, Lilly has been called the "Queen of Prep".

Lillian Lee McKim, nicknamed Lilly, was born to socialites Robert V. McKim and Lillian McKim (née Bostwick) in Roslyn, New York on November 10, 1931. She was the middle child, with older sister Mary Maude (called Memsey) and younger sister Florence Fitch (Flossie). Her mother, Lillian, was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. Lillian divorced Robert and re-married Ogden Phipps in 1937.

Lilly attended the Chapin School in New York City, along with Bouvier sister Jacqueline Lee. In 1949, she graduated from Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. She attended the college-finishing school Finch College in New York City, but left after one semester to work as a midwife's assistant in West Virginia and as a volunteer at the Veterans Hospital in The Bronx.

Manuel "Manolo" Blahnik Rodríguez CBE, ( /məˈnoʊloʊ ˈblɑːnɪk/; born 28 November 1942), is a Spanish fashion designer and founder of the self-named, high-end shoe brand.

Born to a Czech father and a Spanish mother and raised in the Canary Islands (Spain), Blahnik graduated from the University of Geneva in 1965 and studied art in Paris. He moved to London in 1968 to work at fashion boutique "Zapata" and wrote for Vogue Italia. After showing his portfolio of fashions and set designs to Diana Vreeland, she told him that he should design only footwear. In 1972, Ossie Clark invited him to create shoes for his runway show. With a loan of £2,000, Blahnik bought Zapata from its owner and opened his own boutique.

In the 1970s, when chunky platform shoes and boots were the mainstream footwear styling of the day, Manolo Blahnik turned back his attention to the stiletto heel, which has remained the brand's mainstay to this day. Manolo Blahnik shoes have rapidly become a symbol of pure classical style for the 21st century.