graphic shoes–let your imagination go wild

I’m generally not much for "classic" when it comes to shoe styling. I like my shoes to have something a little different about them. Could be an interesting heel shape or a unique strap design or an out-of-the-ordinary material or pattern. Take a basic shoe idea (say, a kitten heel d’orsay peep toe pump with an ankle strap), and do it in black leather… I’m probably not interested. But swap the black leather for a graphic print satin, and all of a sudden I’m covetous like woah. Like the Nine West Sabyne.

This pair is suddenly completely to die for in my book. So, I thought I’d go hunting around for other graphically interesting shoes. They’re so evocative of very specific types of people and places.

These Franco Sarto Avanti’s are like the reverse of an assignment from a 2D design class I took in college where we had to make an eye-catching design using only a white background and a single black dot.

A few assignments later, as we worked on more techniques, we were able to use more combinations of black and white and dots in different sizes and shapes. Rather like these Bandolino Shira peep-toes.

Of course, no survey of graphic shoes is complete without the master of the graphic print, Emilio Pucci. These wedges with the color block heel design make me think of groovy 70s decor with round lamp shades and plush shag carpeting.

And these t-strap sandals belong on the feet of a European socialite at a chic soiree for the creme de la creme of high society.

With graphic print shoes, you never get just a basic. There’s always some story your imagination can concoct about them. And that’s why I love em.

Pucci makes the pained smiles

The great Manolo the Shoeblogger posts about Pucci shoes every once in a while, with the heading, "Pucci makes the smiles!" I bet, however, that he would agree these overly sweet, overly-patterned and overly-saturated heels from Pucci make those smiles to melt tragically into a sugary-vanilla-honey-induced diabetic coma.

Of course, you can always get the approach that these are so tacky they’re truly fabulous and scour the imagination (whatever’s left of it when you recover from that sugar coma) for opportunities to wear them. Here’s one: part of an outfit you wear at the first Antromeda 5-Earth interplanetary reception, so as not to to be outdone by all those wacky alien space