Giuseppe Zanotti Toasts His ‘Slim’ Sandal in Paris

GO FISH: Giuseppe Zanotti swept into Paris on Monday night to celebrate the return of his Slim sandal, originally designed in 2004 and immortalized in pop culture when Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones wore the shoes — and little else — in a racy sushi scene in the 2008 “Sex and the City” film.

Editors and influencers piled into the train-carriage narrow Ojii restaurant on the Left Bank, swilling lychee martinis and Champagne before settling in for rounds of wagyu beef, tuna tartare, tempura and — of course — sushi.

The story of the shoe’s inspiration never gets old, recounted with aplomb by the Italian shoe guru.

“One night in a restaurant, I saw a fish bone on a plate,” he related while sipping on a gin and tonic. “Maybe it was after the second bottle of wine with friends, I put the fishbone on a beautiful girl’s feet, and then I sketched the shoe on the tablecloth. Easy. One second.”

Once he realized the prototype, Zanotti eventually returned the tablecloth to the seaside eatery in Cesenatico, Italy, named Slim after its tall, slender owner, who is now retired.

The Slim is the latest archival design Zanotti has revived and tweaked as a limited edition, and one of his first designs to incorporate hardware.

“I think my secret dream was to be a jewelry designer,” he mused.

The re-edition is part of GZ Signature, a tier dedicated to preserving key silhouettes from the house’s history. Zanotti referenced the original Slim with a silver spine that runs cleanly across the foot, finished with more than 300 crystals set by hand.

“With my time machine, I go back to the past, and study it to understand the value of it in a contemporary way — and then I come back to the future,” Zanotti said this fall, during an interview during Milan Fashion Week.