I did not bother reading the article, but the title made me think of signaling. "I can afford them, and I don't even need to work for that so I don't care how impractical they are".
"Elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is expensive, but also because it is the insignia of leisure," Thorsten Veblen wrote in his classic "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899). "It not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a relatively large value, but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing."
My first thought looking at the examples in the article was that the soles of the shoes don't look much thicker than the uppers.
I read an article not too long ago about how the medieval walking style was different than today. The author believed it was more "toe-centered" [0] primarily because of thin-soled shoes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/feed/a41653-1999d...
"Elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is expensive, but also because it is the insignia of leisure," Thorsten Veblen wrote in his classic "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899). "It not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a relatively large value, but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing."