70 named designers like Dior, Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo on display

Exhibition starting in June explores our habit of wearing extreme shoes

For centuries, shoes have held more than just a functional purpose for women.

Many a night has been marred by squeezing into a pair of sky-scraper heels that are half a size too small, meaning a toss-up between a barefoot walk home and enormous blisters.

But we still insist on spending a fortune on impractical heels season after season.

Now the Victoria & Albert museum is planning an exhibition that charts our love affair with footwear through the ages called Shoes: Pleasure and Pain.

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For centuries, shoes have held more than just a functional purpose for women. Now the V&A museum is planning an exhibition that charts our love affair with footwear through the ages. Pictured is the High & Mighty shoot for American Vogue from February 1995 featuring model Nadja Auermann

The exhibition, which starts in June next year, will explore the agonising aspect of wearing extreme shoes, as well as the euphoria and obsession they can inspire.

Some of the most extreme footwear in the world will go on display in the museum's summer 2015 fashion exhibition.

More than 200 pairs of historic and contemporary shoes from around the world will be on show - many for the first time.

They collection spans 2000 years and includes a sandal decorated in pure gold leaf originating from ancient Egypt to futuristic-looking shoes created using 3D printing.

Roger Vivier for Christian Dior evening shoe, beaded silk and leather, France, 1958 - 60

Wedding toe-knob paduka, silver and goldover wood, India, 1800s

One sandal, gilded and incised leather andpapyrus, Egypt, c30 BCE-300 CE

Shoes worn by - or associated with - Marilyn Monroe, Queen Victoria, Sarah Jessica Parker and Daphne Guinness will be shown, alongside famous pairs of shoes like the ballet slippers designed for Moira Shearer in the 1948 film The Red Shoes.

Footwear for men and women by 70 named designers including Dior, Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Jimmy Choo and Prada will also be on display.

Historic lotus shoes made for bound feet and 16th-century chopines, silk mules with vertiginous platforms designed to lift skirts above the muddy streets, will also feature.

Exhibition curator, Helen Persson, said: 'Shoes are one of the most telling aspects of dress.

'Beautiful, sculptural objects, they are also powerful indicators of gender, status, identity, taste and even sexual preference.

'Our choice in shoes can help project an image of who we want to be.'

Caroline Groves (1959), Parakeet shoes, leather silk satin, solid silver talons and heel tips, with feathers

RiRi, Sophia Webster, Spring Summer 2013

Shoes on display will also include Indian men's shoes with extremely long toes, noisy slap-sole shoes worn in Europe during the 17th century and the famous Vivienne Westwood blue platforms worn by Naomi Campbell in 1993.

Desirable shoes like the 'Pompadour', worn by trend-setting women in the 18th-century French court will sit together with designs by top names in fashion today such as Alexander McQueen and Sophia Webster.

The shoe collection will also show how footwear can represent an expression of sexual empowerment or a passive source of pleasure.

Like feet, shoes can be objects of fetishism.

High Japanese geta, extreme heels and tight-laced leather boots will be on display as well as examples of erotic styles channeled by recent mainstream fashion.

NOVA, by Zaha Hadid for United Nude

Man's leather Oxford lace-up shoe, turquoise leather with applied gold leather decoration; Coxton Shoe Co. Ltd, Rushen, Northamptonshire, England, ca. 1925. Stitched, applied and punched leather with cord laces

In contrast, another part of the exhibition will be dedicated to dissecting the processes involved in designing and creating footwear, laying out the story from concept to final shoe.

The displays will show how makers combine traditional craftsmanship with technological innovation and how they unite function with art.

Designer sketches, materials, embellishments and shoe lasts, such as the lasts created by H. & M. Rayne for Princess Diana, will be on show in this section, alongside 'pullovers' from Roger Vivier for Christian Dior.

Also on display will be footwear that pushes the boundaries of possibility, including the form-pressed Nova shoes designed by Zaha Hadid with an unsupported 16cm heel and Andreia Chaves' Invisible Naked shoes that fuse a study of optical illusion with 3D printing and high quality leather making techniques.