SS12 Fashion Week Footwear: Spotlight on Unique for Topshop

Yesterday was the Unique for Topshop show in London, and in case you couldn’t tell from these two detail shots of some of the outfits and their motifs and accessories, the theme was EGYPT EGYPT EGYPT!!!

Get it?!  EGYPT!!

With the gold and the collar necklaces and just in case you still didn’t get it, massive images of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra all over the place.

Frankly, I found the clothes tacky and like the worst of what Topshop has to offer trendy young London hipsters, as opposed to the high end of the international label, which is what the Unique collection was supposed to be.

However, we’re here to talk shoes, right?  And shoes is what this collection did best.  They did a whole line of platform flats with fun lacing and ankle straps and gold and wing details that, when divorced from the clothing emphasizing the same things, are pretty freakin’ awesome.  Plus, the gold toenail polish is a nice touch, too.

And then there were the heels.  You can’t see the inclusion of tortoise shell patterning on the platforms above (it’s a thin layer between the gold and the color of the platform), but there’s a nice chunk of it on the heel on the left below.  I love the wing details on the back of the shoe (if you want your own winged sandals without waiting for next Spring, you could follow Trainingheels’ advice and pick up Rachel Comey’s red wedges) and the notched heel that’s also on the beige shoes at the right, where the gold heel comes across as just the right amount of bling without being garish.

So my advice would be skip all the Topshop Unique clothes and keep your funds for the footwear.

SS12 Fashion Week Footwear Trend Alert: Transparency

The manic Fashion Week energy has moved on away from New York City, but that only means it’s off across the Pond from Big Apple to Big Smoke.  London Fashion Week is well under way, and we’re seeing some of the same trends at Somerset House that New York brought us at Lincoln Center.

For example, that transparency thing that I mentioned with the uber uncomfy Carolina Herrera’s posted here or the Marchesa and Narciso Rodriguez shoes over here?

Well, I’m calling it.  Add it to the list of trends to keep an eye out for come Spring.

See-through footwear showed up through the rest of NYFW in shows like 3.1 Phillip Lim (left and center) and Chado Ralph Rucci (right).

Now, if you ask me, those are all three of them painful looking.  Talk about edges of straps digging into your foot.  And despite that last show being an awfully good attempt at a modern day Cinderella slipper, it’s nothing I’d want to be wearing to the ball to meet Prince Charming.  Hell, after a night of dancing in those, I’d be ripping ‘em both off and tossing ‘em at Prince-y, just to get them off my feet.

To round out the New York’s see-through bounty, the Marc Jacobs show flirted with transparent shoes, including these booties, which fill me, realist that I am, with dreadful imaginings of how rank and sweaty and stinky they would be after a day of wearing them.

And then we went to London!

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Spring 2012 Fashion Week Footwear: More Updates from the Runways

Of the most recent crop of runway shoes out there, I was smitten by… wait, no.  I’ll save the smitten-making shoes til the end.  What I’ll start with instead is another trend I’ve been seeing a fair bit of: transparency.

Like these from three from Marchesa.  The collection was floaty and ethereal and romantic, and the transparent shoes matched that with some gorgeous graceful lines.

Oscar de la Renta also showed us some transparent shoes, though in that show there was quite a bit of playing with colors and socks underneath to make the transparency show up very differently (god, I just typed that “shoe up very differently” at first… guess what I’ve been thinking about this week).  I dig the oxford inspiration and the buckles and the ankle straps… but you’re probably getting tired of me mentioning those things this week.

The next triad here is three shoes from three shows that I loved.  Left to right we have Narciso Rodriguez’s take on a super high class Ace bandage, Sophie Theallet’s spectator-inspired pump that looks like murder to wear but is so damn adorable (plus double buckles!), and one more by Oscar de la Renta that was a mule so beautifully embellished and so reminiscent of something Marie-Antoinette might have slipped on that I couldn’t pass it up.

But the shoes that had me smitten (you’ve been patient until now, after all) were the shoes that out Lepore’d Nanette Lepore for quirky feminine… Tory Burch.  I was hella surprised, I must admit, because usually I find Tory Burch shoes insipid and ubiquitous, and Nanette Lepore usually does the quirky feminine to a T.  But first, look at the Nanette Lepore offering, of which I only present one to save your retinas some serious searing.

You can click on that image and enlarge it, but you might want to put some sunglasses on first.

OK, back with me?  Sunspots cleared from your vision?  Well if you want to cool things down a little, then check out the adorableness (and look! some low heels!) of Tory Burch’s offerings and coo in delight that these may be coming to a store near you in a matter of months.

SS Fashion Week Footwear: Runway Drive-by

OK, friends, I have lots of interesting shoes to share from the NYC runways, so here goes.

We start before the jump with this one from Preen, which I put here, not because I like it or want to wear it or think it would be comfortable, but because it answers the question What would it look like if LEGOs and doilies and bikers had a baby and it took the form of footwear? And since that’s a question I just know you were all asking yourselves, I didn’t want to keep the answer from you one second longer.

And I will give you this one, too, from the Carolina Herrera show, because rarely have I seen a shoe that looks THIS painful to wear.

Now follow along after the cut for many more.

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SS12 Shoe Trend Alert: Ankle Straps

The trend alerts continue, and they’re comin’ on strong.

We’ve covered some of the patterns already, but if I had to predict one thing that’ll show up most come next spring, it’s not white or buckles or shiny shiny gold (though here are drive-by pics to show that Zac Posen has also jumped on the C3PO train, as has Thakoon… love those gilded toe caps!).

It’s ankle straps.

Yep.  Some are thin, like these Zac Posen’s or the Derek Lam ones I posted about earlier.  But mostly, we’re getting thick ankle straps that fasten in all kinds of interesting ways.

There are zips, like at the Custo Barcelona show:

There are ties, like these at the Timo Weiland show:

And, of course, there are buckles (buckles!), like that last Timo Weiland shoe above, like the ones at Christian Siriano a few days ago or like the show to which I will dedicate the rest of this post, because the shoes were gorgeous and spring-like and made me want to get all flirty in the sunshine: DKNY.  So feast your eyes on these pretty pretty puppies, and let the Fashion Week shoe parade march on.