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It’s an addiction," Kathy Asta of Naples says matter of factly, writing her name and contact information on a small piece of paper before dropping it into an oversized fish bowl.

Photo by JAKOB SCHILLERDaily News

Daily News

Elizabeth Colston looks at a pair of shoes by Stuart Weitzman during a social event at Saks Fifth Avenue put on by the Naples chapter of the Hello Stiletto shoe club on Thursday, September, 13, 2007.

The "it" isn’t drugs, alcohol, gambling or anything you can be arrested for. It’s shoes, and Asta has more than 100 pairs.

She’s entered a Naples Saks Fifth Avenue drawing for yet another pair. They sit on a small pedestal: high heeled, patent leather pumps by designer Stuart Weitzman, in black or a dark, smoldering red. They retail for around $200, which is fairly modest for Saks, where the most sought-after styles can run as much as $1,000.

Asta isn’t the only woman with a shoe addiction at the store this evening. About 20 women wander between the tables of Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos. Sipping pink "stilettotinis" and munching on canapés from Brio Tuscan Grill, they range in age from their mid-20s up through their late-60s. Some have come straight from work. Others are dressed causally. But they all have one thing in common: an unabashed love of shoes.

The women are among the roughly 70 members of Hello Stiletto, a social and networking group for shoe lovers that started in Boston. The club has expanded to include three other chapters in Chicago, Atlanta and most recently a Naples’ branch that launched in May.

Tonight is the Naples club’s first "shopping event," an evening dedicated to trying on and gushing over shoes from the fall collections of Saks’ hottest designers. All the big names are here: Chanel, Prada, Dior, Gucci. And if a particularly discriminating customer is after a hard-to-find something — say, one of Christian Louboutin’s signature red-soled pumps — it can be ordered, maybe from the eighth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store in New York. Completely devoted to shoes, the floor stocks more than 100,000 pairs and has even been given its own ZIP code by the U.S. Postal Service: 10022-SHOE.

Photo by JAKOB SCHILLER

A red patent-leather shoe by Manolo Blahnik sits on display at Saks Fifth Avenue. The designer was considered by some as the "fifth star" of "Sex and the City" along with the shows four main characters.

But in spite of all that Italian leather, most of the club members aren’t buying. Small piles of spike heels collect in front of the comfy couches as the women try on pair after pair of sleek, stylish shoes.

For the women of Hello Stiletto, shoes are more than an accessory. In platform wedges, pointy-toed stilettos or leopard print flats, the women can express who they really are or craft who they dream of being. It doesn’t matter if they’ve had a bad week or if they’ve gained 10 pounds; it doesn’t matter that they won’t buy the $650 Dior sandals or the $800 Jimmy Choos that they’re trying on at Saks. For the moment the shoes are on their feet, they feel sexy, strong and glamorous.

In the right pair of shoes, they are transformed.

- - -

"I know what I like right away," says Gail Lulley, coordinator of the Naples Hello Stiletto, "I walked right over to them."

She’s zeroed in on a pair of Donald Pliner peep-toe heels in leopard print. The narrow heel is sheathed in blood red leather and a matching insert is visible through the open toe. The shoe is wild, striking and undeniably sexy.

"They’re like a furry cat," Lulley says, chuckling.

Lulley, who has come from her job at Northern Trust, wears black slacks and a bright red sports coat. She’s in her late-40s, her brown hair falls neatly to her chin, and on her feet an attractive pair of pointy-toed black leather pumps poke out from the cuffs of her pants. The heels are low and sensible.

A white price tag is stuck to the bottom of the Pliner shoe. It reads $355. Lulley strokes the shoe once or twice, then places it back on the shelf and walks away.

- - -

Now 1,400 members strong, Hello Stiletto began in Boston in 2003 as a girls’ night out for founder Melissa O’Shea and a few friends.

"A friend of mine was confessing to me that she had just bought six pairs of shoes in one weekend," O’Shea remembers. But instead of being shocked, she was excited.

Also a shoe fanatic, O’Shea says she has more than 200 pairs of shoes packed into her Medford, Mass., home. She says that she’d rather not share how much she spends on shoes in a year and jokes that she’s been a shoe lover since birth.

Photo by JAKOB SCHILLER

Rahel Brown, the co-organizer of the Naples chapter of the Hello Stiletto shoe club, tries on a pair of shoes by Manolo Blahnik, the same pair that was stolen off Carrie Bradshaw's feet in an episode of "Sex and the City."

"I had to hire a mover specifically because of all the shoes," O’Shea says.

After hearing her friend’s confession, O’Shea decided that they needed an opportunity to go out and wear their favorite shoes together.

She organized an evening out for herself and eight friends at a whimsical tapas restaurant called Dalí and encouraged her friends to wear their favorite shoes. The evening culminated in a shoe fashion show judged by the restaurant’s international staff.

"The waiters were pouring champagne into our mouths," she recalls, laughing. O’Shea decided to organize another event.

Four years later, the Boston club has 700-800 members, and the concept is spreading around the country. O’Shea has talked to women in places like Maine, Detroit and California. A few weeks ago, Hello Stiletto was featured in a segment on NBC’s "Today" show.

Lulley learned about Hello Stiletto the way most members have — through a friend.

"One of my good friends went to this great shoe party and I said, ‘Oh, I’m jealous.’" Lulley, who is originally from Cape Cod, contacted O’Shea about setting up a branch in Naples. In May, Lulley and her co-coordinator, Rahel Brown, held their first event at the Grill Room at Coconut Point. About 15 women attended.

"We get together and socialize, and the shoe thing is a common denominator," Lulley explains. "It’s kind of like a book club, but you don’t have to do anything. Just show up."

It’s free to join, but there is one risk.

"Now that we have a shoe club going I’ve been spending a lot of money on shoes," admits Brown, who estimates that she spends $3,000 a year on shoes.

- - -

Pam Frailey is slowly wandering through the elegant displays in the Saks shoe department. She pauses here and there to pick up a shoe, examine it and put it back down. Her straight, dark-blond hair falls just past her shoulders, and her shoes are simple black sandals with wide straps and thick, medium-height heels. Dressed in off-white cargo pocket capris and a black, white and grey striped tank top, the Naples real estate agent seems to fade into the background behind the colorful and sparkling shoes.

"There are so many different shapes, styles and designs," she says. "I see a lot I like."

But Frailey, who joined Hello Stiletto after meeting Lulley through mutual friends, isn’t really shopping. She’s waiting for a special occasion to make her next big shoe purchase, Frailey says. Tonight is more about socializing with friends and meeting new people.

"When you get 20 women together," Lulley says, "the conversation ranges all over."

Photo by JAKOB SCHILLER

Bill Popp, right, a sales associate at Saks Fifth Avenue helps Pam Frailey try on a pair of shoes by Dior. "It's a totally different kind of networking event than anything else in Naples, " Frailey said about her decision to attend.

Five minutes later, Frailey is perched on the edge of a deep couch while Saks sales associate Bill Popp maneuvers her foot into dramatic pair of Dior platform stilettos. Called the Deco Sandal, the shoes are metal-colored peep-toes with a leather and suede bow in the middle of the toe. At the bow’s center, a metal "D" charm adds a saucy accent.

A smile spreads over Frailey’s face as Popp secures the shoe onto her foot. She stands slowly. With the astonishing heels and the shoe’s platform base, she is at least four inches taller.

Frailey takes a few tentative steps, which turn into confident strides. She seems to be standing straighter and holding herself with a new confidence as she moves around a small patch of carpet.

Suddenly all eyes are on Frailey. A small crowd of women forms around her, everyone focused on her feet as they coo over the elegant sandals. Frailey glows.

- - -

"I feel like Carrie from ‘Sex and the City’ with the Manolos and the Jimmy Choos around me," says 27-year-old Kristen Oliver as she leans back into one of the beige couches.

You can’t talk about shoes — especially footwear with emblematic names and three- or four-digit quality crafting — without talking about Carrie Bradshaw. The urbanite singleton mainstreamed the craving for not just shoes, but expensive shoes; not just for a few, but for more than one woman could ever reasonably wear.

And the guilt. No one feels more deliciously guilty (gleeful, renewed) about her addiction than Carrie Bradshaw.

"I’ve spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live?" says Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in one episode. "I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes."

After six seasons, the popular HBO show made champagne shoe tastes on a peanut butter budget seem, well, reasonable.

"That program created a following," says Naples Saks’ shoe manager Marty Rau. "No matter who you are, no matter what you like, when you put on a pair of shoes that makes you feel good, everything else goes away."

O’Shea remembers that feeling of euphoria during Hello Stiletto Boston’s first shopping event at Barney’s New York.

"I tried on the most beautiful pair of Manolo Blahnik leopard-print pumps," she says. "My mother said she saw a smile start from the tips of my toes and go all the way up to my face."

On a couple of occasions O’Shea has even bought shoes that aren’t in her size. If they’re one of a kind and gorgeous, she says, she figures she’ll squeeze into them, give them away or just have them to admire.

"It’s complete and utter lust," she says. "When I wear those leopard-print pumps I’m definitely channeling Marilyn (Monroe)."

A great pair of shoes is transformative. If only for a moment. At the store. In your closet. With the shoe club.

"Shoes can be a mood changer," she says. "If you are leaving work in classic pumps and change into a pair of sexy sandals, it just has to affect your mood."

O’Shea says: "There’s something totally emotional for me about shoes. "The right pair of high heels makes you feel confident, powerful and beautiful."

You can see it as the women prowl the store. With the Dior sandals on, Frailey stops shuffling her feet. In spite of the rickety stilettos — no, because of them — she struts.

The right shoe, says Naples shoe club co-coordinator Brown, "just makes you feel like a woman."

Brown tries on shoe after shoe at Saks looking for the right pair. Not the Jimmy Choos in sage patent leather with that ridiculously high stiletto heel nor the pewter-colored Prada sandals. At one point, Brown actually tries on a shoe that is straight out of the "Sex and the City" aesthetic: the silver satin D’orsey-cut Manolo Blahnik heels that a mugger takes right off Carrie’s feet in one episode. They are beautiful, and would suck up three months worth of Brown’s self-allotted $250 monthly shoe budget. She heads home empty-handed.

"Thank God they didn’t have my size," Brown says. She laughs.

Want to learn more? Check out the Hello Stiletto Web site.