Shoe blog

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!

The Richard Nicoll show crammed lots more model feet into lots more pointy-toed, sweat-generating clear monstrosities (have you gathered by now that I really don’t like transparency in shoes?) like these.

Yeah… I’m not a fan.  Points for fun metallic toe nail polish, but I might just bust out in hives at the thought of wearing these all day.

However, all is not lost.  Because Matthew Williamson, whose flirty bright clothes I am almost always enamored of, brought the see-through in a way I find utterly charming.

Before you cringe too much, yes, I am aware that many of the shots of these shoes highlight the ravages of runway footwear on models’ tootsies (that center image is actually one of the least claw-like, believe it or not), but good god, those shoes are pretty!  There’s a huge difference to me when clear plastic is used in large amounts and/or on its own (the way most of the other designers have used it so far) and when it’s given a tinge of color and used sparingly, like these here beauties.  I love the patterned fabric on the platforms and the contrasting colors and most of all that little layering effect you can see on the right from putting the satiny straps over the colored see-through material.  C’est magnifique!  Wait… we haven’t gotten to Paris Fashion Week yet.  Hold that thought.

In the meanwhile, I’m going to leave you with some more Matthew Williamson, where the transparency remains, but used in similarly subtle and colorful fashion (it’s the heels, folks, the heels!), and yes, I pretty much covet all of these.