The trend of sinister shoes really does appeal to me.
The Pour La Victoire “Sacha” has been popping up everywhere. I mentioned this Brazilian brand previously but this shoe is a more accurate representation of what the line is all about. This is the grey version. There’s also black and so many other tough designs. I’m really curious as to how long this trend is going to maintain itself because I fall in love with this shoe a little bit more every time I look at it. I could easily play futuristic apocalyptic sexpot warrior in these!
Korean-born, French-based designer Raphael Young’s SS2009 collection is along the same lines, and boy do I love a monstrous wedge heel. They are incredible. I can walk for miles in wedges like that!
There’s also Nicholas Kirkwood… so different and talented and I think I’ve mentioned him at least three times now.
P.S. I don’t know why but these boots are driving me crazy!
I’ve been spotting images with a screen printed feel on tons of things lately. I tried my own hand at the screenprinting process for fabric this summer but as with most projects, I figured out how to do it and lost interest. Jane of all trades, I supose. One thing I didn’t try was the photo emulsion technique. I just blocked out with mod podge… infinitely more laborious and incapable of producing the incredible neatness and details these pieces have.
Please check out all of the delightful designs at Paraphernalia. Running the gamut of sickening sweet to uncomfortable and bizzare… her pieces are always large and bold and made with a lot of love in the UK.
Cul de sac design makes tableware with simple but powerful motifs.
Lorena Barrezueta’s “Listen Lady” line of jewelry is made from porcelain and is a bit modern with a touch of irony.
Esther Derkx is sold at Rose and Radish and they had this to say:
Dutch product designer Esther Derkx takes pleasure in interfering with the lives of existing objects. Recognizing the potential in screen-printing, Derkx has tested the boundaries of the process by screen-printing onto everything from champagne flutes to toilet bowls. After spending seven years as a screen-printer, Derkx finally became an independent designer in 2000 and has since built a career that artfully combines various aspects of her backgrounds in antique furniture restoration, ceramics, and screen-printing. She lives and works in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
I really don’t know what to think about these hidden wedge boots. They look so… wrong and really push the boundaries of what I’m willing to accept in footwear. I’m also not a fan of the covered platforms that are so big now. They give the illusion of Minnie Mouse shoes, making your foot look large and bulbous. I’m short and I don’t mind being short but, I know there are a lot of people who are bothered by their height. While I know it’s a matter of aesthetics and not orthotics, hidden platforms and wedges just seem like a creepy fraud to me, like wearing lifts in your shoes or “chicken cutlets” in your bra.
Is sometimes strange just a little too strange? I don’t think I’m ready for this. (I would wear the Margiela’s in a heartbeat though.)
Balenciaga
Chloe
Gabriella Rocha (somewhat affordable)
Here are some other relatively afforadable ones from Amazon if you’re into this kind of thing: 1 . 2 . 3
Rick Owens
Maison Martin Margiela
Thanksgiving means the dog show!
These Inuit children are cuddling their future sled dogs. What I wouldn’t give to play with those puppies! My life will not be complete until I get a dog!
Just as plaid comes back in the fall and safari is big in the summer, delicate laser cut shoes resurge in the spring. This is a detail in a shoe I have yet to own but I really do like these two offerings. The first is from a realtively new Brazilian line of shoes called Pour La Victoire and is one of their less aggressive styles. I looove the open toe bootie shape (my favorite shoe shape at the moment), especially sans platform. The bright blue really would go with anything.
Pour La Victoire – Eden
The next is available at Victoria’s Secret and made by Hale Bob. I love the purple, the wide strap and the curvy heel that deserves to be with something a bit feminine… or not.
Hale Bob
Keeping with the lacey and colorful theme, check out this house (via Design Milk). It was designed by Italo Rota and is perfectly fitting for decadent fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, who can change the home’s color according to his mood – located in Florence, Italy.
No doubt that Cavalli designed these pumps in 2007.
Roberto Cavalli – T7711
My family is neither religious nor festive. We cook Thanksgiving dinner because it’s a special meal to have once a year and we never once went around the table to say what we were thankful for.
Today, for the first time in a long time, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life.
The realities of the world we live in have been closing in on me as of late. At night when I’m trying to drift off to blissfully ignorant sleep, I have flashes of pets and the homeless shivering in the cold, abject poverty and senseless violence, and unimaginable suffering. I think of hunger and the abandoned and the cruel injustices of bad luck. Why these things flash across my mind is a mystery and it’s certainly torture but it’s good to be aware of how lucky you have it when it’s so easy to get lost in the trivial complaints of our comparatively glorious lives.
As of late, complete strangers have been noticeably nicer when I’ve gone into the world to run errands. I think we’re all feeling a bit humbled by the economy. Maybe it’s the holiday spirit. Maybe we have all been slammed by force into not taking so many things for granted like we had been. This extends into a sense that we are all in this together and if retirement plans have fallen into the dust, jobs are lost, and everyone’s just a little bit nervous and afraid, we still have one another.
I am thankful for the goodness that lies within all of us. It will carry us through.
Who doesn’t remember plates hung on the wall in their childhood home? My mom slowly collected all of the Franklin Mint nursery rhyme plates and had them on my walls in my nursey when I was a baby. There was a row of other plates above the kitchen cabinets and a few times a year, there was a grand plate washing fiesta. Yes, they’re dust catchers and rarely does a hanging plate collection ever look fresh these days but these two examples from Apartment Therapy have been bookmarked for a while and never managed to get deleted. I’m really feeling this approach to displaying a plate collection.
This arrangement is random and whimsical. The patterns are consistent and it’s more like an art installation than the typical display.
This is organized and symmetrical and I love the muted monochromatic theme.
Words cannot express how tired I am of the 5″ platform stiletto craze. Yes, they’re beautiful but, the only place those shoes are appropriate are at a club and you certainly couldn’t dance in them for very long without needing to be carried out on a gurney. When professional models can’t even maneuver in them…
Maybe because I have small feet (6.5), the incline of an extremely high heel is much more steep than a larger foot would have to endure. Either way, they’re nice to look at but the impracticality and discomfort blows my mind.
In my Fall shoe review, I picked a lot of chunky/cone shaped heels with wee platforms. This is what I’m craving right now (oh, and some nude pointed pumps).
These grey satin, black patent and gold Lanvin heels are just so pretty. Elber Albaz always hits the nail right on the head.
The Museum at FIT in NY is showing a retrospective of goth fashion until February 21, 2009.
Peruse the offerings here. It looks like a lot of fun.
;)
black, white and red all over -
Love love love Neutrino Designs‘ tableware. It’s quirky, modern, science-based and modestly priced for what it is, design wise. The orange heels in the top left are Versace and the straps are dimensional puffy tubes. I’ve always been fearful of dresses like the grey one with the chest ruffles. It seems a bit dangerous - like anyone taller than you could look down and totally see nipple. The details are lovely though. I don’t know how I have managed to garner 4 pairs of leopard print shoes and I rarely ever wear them. I have a pair very similar to these and really want to pair them randomly with purple or electric blue. (The platform craze must end soon!) The little black blazer was from the Delia’s catalogue. I dig the rustic handstitched detail. Of course… the Report Signature Masonic studded heels I have dominatrix dreams about.
Remember cootie catchers? The dress in the top left reminds me of the paper folds that held your destiny. (I think it’s dark denim with silver paint.) I don’t know why I was feeling forties-style dresses like the red shift above and the white ones below. I rarely go anywhere they would be appropriate. If I had an office job though, they would be a staple in my wardrobe. The little jacket/panty set with Swiss dots is so impractical. Yes… I should be blogging in bed with that on, right now! I rarely wear red but those Ray-Ban specs are so graphic and bold. I really like wide sides on glasses. Kind of over pointy toed boots right now.
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