‘The ones that I love’

Chiara Siracusa totters out of the television studio balancing on her pink, glittery high heels, all 16cm of them, and leaves behind an audience still reeling from the vibe of her latest single, the controversial My Żarbun. “Shoes are my life,” the singer says by way of introduction. “They mean the world to me.” She has 155 pairs – she counts them – and they line her bedroom wall on open shelves from top to bottom. “I don’t want them in boxes, I want to be able to look at them all the time,” she says in her larger-than-life manner. This self-proclaimed obsession is what got her new Icelandic management, Hands Up Music, to write her a club song dedicated to her shoes. “When the song was ready, my manager Valgeir Magnusson, asked me: what is ‘shoes’ in Maltese?” The rest is history. Upon its release last month, My Żarbun went viral, with more than 112,000 views, over a thousand comments, and scores of humorous memes doing the rounds on social media. To fuel the comic element, the song also features the contribution of Icelandic DJ Haffi Haff. “It was hilarious, but I assure you it’s completely incidental that the DJ’s name means barefoot in Maltese. I really hadn’t noticed before...