What did Fall 2010 Fashion Month tell us?

With the three major fall 2010 fashion events, New York, Milan and Paris,  concluding, there were a few shoe trends that recurred in several collections.  This is what we saw.  Mad Men curves are in.  Fur is in. Many of the big name fashion houses went with classic investment pieces that were timeless looking.  Several of the lesser known houses had some beautiful and interesting  pieces.  Let’s look at some shoes – that’s why we are all here.

Pointy toe shoes are returning, so dust off your Guess “Carrie” shoes because we will be seeing more pointy toes in the future.

Prada

Valentino.  There was a flat and a kitten heel also presented in this collection.

Louis Vuitton

While stilettoes were seen, typically  if the heel was high - especially boots -then it was a chunky heel.  I love the stability chunky heels offer.  Can you imagine tottering around in the above Vuitton shoes if  the heel was pencil thin?

Alexander Wang

Fendi

Erdem – love the print on these boots.

Not many wedges were seen, so I am guessing we will be seeing those phased out over the next couple of years.

Kenzo

Bottega Veneta featured this wedge on all the shoes.

Dries Van Noten.  I LOVE this half wedge.

With the retro girly-fication of the styles  no tough girl platforms were necessary.

Marc Jacobs

Dolce Gabbana

Carolina Herrera

Lanvin (Arguably the best line of the season.)

But lots of platforms were presented.

Christian Louboutin for Phillip Lim

Michael Kors

Burberry Prorsum

Brian Atwood for Victoria Beckham.

There must have been 10 different colors of this shoe because Mrs. Beckham likes to match her shoes to her dress.  These shoes are nice but nothing to hyper-ventilate over.  Her dresses were nice, wearable, and pretty.

Over the knee boots will be around for a while.  We saw over the knee boots in several presentations.  Since this is the fall season, we should not be surprised.

Burberry Prorsum presented some of the season’s favorite boots.

Roberto Cavalli

Statement shoes were everywhere.

If you are a chiropractor, you NEED these shoes.

Dsquared

Nicholas Kirkwood for Rodarte

Louise Goldin

Chanel.  Notice the ice heel.

Chanel’s show, in my opinion was one of the goofiest ideas I think I have ever seen.  Uncle Karl shipped a glacier from Sweden to Paris, had it sculpted it for the runway, put it on a swimming pool type platform,  then the models walked through about an inch of melting glacier water.  He presented some beautiful suits, IF you could see past the heinous fake fur that accompanied these outfits.  Global warming, glaciers melting, save the furry animals was the message of this show.  Here’s the thing. 1) Lagerfield  used more fur in Fendi than virtually any other collection, so why use cheap looking fake fur with Chanel.  2) The carbon footprint of this show was massive and the power it took to present this show could have powered a small country.  (Here is where I usually go off on my global-warming-leadership-hypocrasy tirade, but I won’t because you came here to see shoes.)

OK,  I rarely look at purses, but I WANT THIS PURSE.

Forgive me for this long post, but there were so many beautiful shoes, and even more beautiful outfits.  I wanted to show them all to you but that isn’t possible.

Paris Fashion Week Marches On

Well, Averyl Oates (buying director for Harvey Nichols) may think the Dries van Noten shoes were all that, but I can’t say as I agree.

This is a designer who’s previously brought us such glorious pattern and texture combinations as the Spring 2009 line and the likewise-stylish Fall 2008 line.

But for Fall 2009, I have to say my high hopes were disappointed.  Pattern, yes.  But monochromatic and not terribly interesting.  Texture, sure, but only with a repeated python print (yawn… I’m not down with all the snake usage) and some rather boring brown leathers and… well… see and judge for yourselves.

Sure, that middle shoe is a beaut, but it’s a little snoreish given that it’s coming from Dries.

All right, as Averyl notes, the python soles is a cool idea.

But that doesn’t save this from being a bland collection from a designer about whom I never expected to use such a word.

I will, however, completely and totally agree with Averyl’s opinion on the Givenchy shoes.  What a fanciful pile of footwear!  Look!

I’m surprised we haven’t already seen Posh out and about in that last pair.

Picking up the Dries van Noten slack, it should be noted, was Emanuel Ungaro, where Esteban Cortazar seemed to take just the right mix of inspiration from the Dries Fall ’08 line and the Cynthia Steffe Fall ’09 line I was raving about a few weeks ago.  Who wouldn’t want to hit the town in these fun party shoes?

And finally for today’s fashion week report, I can’t leave without making mention of Costume National, where the Rick Owens blousy boots saw their cousins on parade and these gorgeous and funky MaryJanes clip-clopped down the catwalk to stylishly win my heart.

(images from Elle.com and Style.com)

Gimme Shoes or Gimme Death

Ok, so my title is a bit over the top, but I’d rather perish than live an existence without shoe shopping. I may have cut down on my clothes shopping, but shoe shopping is a bare essential! I’ll be wearing a potato sack in Great Depression 2.0, but my shoes will gleam like a brand new shiny silver nickel, even if I have to cover Keds with aluminum foil or spray paint them silver!

In San Francisco, Gimme Shoes is one of my new favorite stores. They just have fantastic taste, rejecting vulgarity in favor of classic, classy styles. The lovely designer Louisa Parris told me she got some of her runway shoes for the Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion event from Gimme, and after several visits, I can see why. I stopped by the Gimme in Hayes Valley and saw this irresistible Belle by Sigerson Morrison origami flat and Repetto boot.

They are having a winter sale online where you can find the delicious likes of Loeffler Randall, Dries Van Noten, Chie Mihara, 3.1 Philip Lim and Yohji Yamamoto. Check it out here.

Gonna Dries You Up in My Love

Shoeblog’s love for Dries Van Noten has been well documented.

The spring 2009 Dries shoes are beauts, and no mistake.

Love those slightly curving heels!  Adore the Dries trademark combination of patterns and materials.

But, dare I say it?  Does this look a little tame for this normally exuberant line?  I mean, they’re gorgeous, no doubt, and a lot better than some of the things we’ve seen down the Parisian catwalks (just wait for the upcoming post about Givenchy), but when I think Dries, I think COLOR COLOR COLOR!!  And this… well… this just didn’t have it.

Since there’s no Shoes of Project Runway post this week (long evening gowns make it damn near impossible to figure out what shoes those models have on), and in fact, since there will probably be no more Shoes of Project Runway posts for season 5 (since we’re off to Bryant Park next), I will sum up my feelings to this Dries Van Noten collection with a typical Nina Garcia response.

Dries, I just wish we could have seen more from you.

In Non-Runway News

New York Fashion Week has come and gone for another year (though we still have a few more things to say in this corner of the internet… stay tuned), and before we get into the London shows, I’m jumping in with a Runway-to-Real-Life shoe story.

I recently encountered a co-worker whose fashion is top-notch.  Clothes-wise, jewelry-wise, bags-wise, and of course, shoes-wise.

First off, there are these flats from Angelo Figus (a designer who was new to me).  They are both adorable and edgy at once: a combination not easy to come by.

See… adorable.  But wait for it…

That’s the bottom.  See that metallic edginess?  Need a close-up?

Yep… it’s got a cloven metal plate on the heel.  That is my kind of shoe.

But this style maven’s real passion when it comes to footwear is Dries van Noten.  Dries, the love of Shoesense’s heart.

Take note of that second link there.  Take particular note of the second picture in that post.  Because that’s the pretty baby I giddily got try on when Ms. Fashion Forward brought them in to work.

Now, those shoes are MUCH higher than anything I’d wear myself, but I have to say that when I put them on, they were startlingly comfortable for how high and thin that heel is.  But the heel’s smartly located more sturdily underneath the center of your heel, and there’s a bit of hidden padded platforming under the ball of your foot that lifts it up just a bit.  And, of course, those shoes are gorgeous, which never hurts.

But I’m much more of a flats kind of girl, so the white ones (which are also Dries) really sucked me in.  You can’t see it from here, but the crinkly flaking look is actually because these shoes are made out of a malleable metallic material that I’d never seen before.  They have a beautiful sheen to them and are just interesting enough texture-wise that they keep from being too girly.

So there you have it, shoe fans.  A non-runway post that, come to think of it, did actually refer to the runway.  But it was last year’s runway and this year’s actually purchasable shoes.  That counts, doesn’t it?