Shoes 253 by Andy Warhol is a 1980 screenprint from his Shoes series. The work features a cluster of brightly colored high-heeled shoes arranged against a glittering black background. Warhol used his diamond dust technique to give the surface a sparkling texture, transforming these familiar fashion objects into icons of glamour and excess.
Returning to His Fashion Illustration Roots
Shoes 253 revisits some of Warhol’s earliest subjects, reconceptualizing past motifs through the evolution of his Pop Art style. The series reflects his 1950s commercial work as a fashion illustrator for Glamour, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and I. Miller & Sons. Here, Warhol reimagines his shoe designs that predate his artistic notoriety, long before works such as the Marilyns and Campbell’s Soup Cans. Other works from the series include Shoes 257 and Shoes 254.
Warhol bought a box of shoes to use as props in September 1978. “Went out and bought props for drawings (fruit $23.80). Got a load of 1950s used shoes down on Canal Street for $2 a pair. It’s just the shoes I used to draw, all the Herbert Levine shoes with the creative lasts” (The Andy Warhol Diaries). He brought the shoes back to his studio, and his assistant Ronnie Cutrone scattered them across the floor. Warhol, struck by the arrangement, began photographing them repeatedly, rearranging the compositions to achieve the perfect visual rhythm.
Fashion, Glamour, and Pop Culture
The screenprint depicts an assortment of shoes dispersed across a shimmering black background, mimicking the imagery of shoes left carelessly on the floor. The bright colors stand out against the dark backdrop, emphasizing the details within each shoe. Warhol’s use of diamond dust adds an elegant sparkle. Inspired by prints made by master printer Rupert Jasen Smith, Warhol preferred pulverized glass over rough industrial diamond dust to achieve the same luminous effect.
Shoes 253 in Warhol’s Larger Body of Work
Shoes 253, along with the entire Shoes series, merges Warhol’s fascination with commodities, luxury, and celebrity culture. The stiletto heel—a symbol of 1970s and 1980s Manhattan glamour—reflects both fashion and nightlife culture of the time. By transforming scattered shoes into a shimmering constellation of form and color, Warhol elevated the mundane to the level of myth, capturing the seductive energy of New York’s art, club, and celebrity scene.
Photo credit: Andy Warhol, Leonardo Bust, Halston Shoes (1981). Photograph by Robert Levin. Courtesy of Maison Gerard, New York.
