Shoe blog

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.