Shoe With Sole

Clodhoppers. Those sensible shoes that evoke images of snowbound New York streets, Rosie the Riveter and timeless proletarian fashion.

They may never overtake stiletto heels and low-slung pumps, but in certain circles today, clunky industrial-looking shoes are selling briskly.

“It’s an anti-fashion statement that’s really popular,” says Jennifer Thompson of Sepulveda, who owns several pairs. “They’re fun, they’re comfortable and they catch people’s attention.”

They’re also built to last. Often stitched in thick black leather, with no-nonsense laces, rounded toes and thick, rubberized soles, these are shoes for serious business.

At Sacha in Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, a sales clerk says one model even features a steel toe and “a bottom that’s made out of something that chemicals can’t eat through.”

“We’re getting a lot of the old styles with the big thick heels. We have one really big, obnoxious shoe that kind of looks like Frankenstein. It stands out like a sore thumb, it’s so ugly, and people like that,” the Sacha sales clerk says. Prices range from $58 to $78.

Cinderella’s glass slippers these are not. But the fashion crowd doesn’t seem to care.

“It’s kind of that New York, ‘Details’ magazine look,” says Steve Keros of NaNa in Santa Monica, which wholesales the square-toed shoes to avant-garde shops like War Babies on Melrose and The Electric Chair in Hermosa Beach.

“All the people who buy them are real artsy.”