Hey, foot fashionistas! There’s a new set of tootsies in town. I’m TrainingHeels, and I’ll be sharing my secrets for keeping it stylish on a budget, sassy in boring business zones, and comfortable and upright on difficult terrain. I split time between San Francisco, LA and New York, so I’m always prepared for a walking, dining, driving, stairclimbing, running to an appointment, see and be seen challenge. (More on my tips for walking, driving and dancing properly and stylishly in each city in a later post).

I have an interesting shoe heritage, having grown up in my parents’ shoe sales and shoe repair shops, watching the most beautiful Prada heels and Gucci loafers shuffled in bruised and broken and paraded out proud and gleaming, good as new. If you’ve got repair questions, I’m your gal, and if I don’t have the answer, I will inquire with the best of cobblers.

I’ve had the unfortunate diagnosis from a host of podiatrists (I kept hoping one was wrong and seeking another opinion!) of having plantar fasciitis, also known as the bubonic plague that wipes out your stilettos in one fell swoop. I haven’t let that stop me from participating in the art of shopping for and wearing delectable foot candy.

First off, I stretch my feet regularly and roll them over a foot massager nightly. For the long dashes across the Meatpacking District’s cobblestones or Russian Hill’s slopes on nights out, I place a pair of Scoop ballets, Born arch support flats, French Sole leopard slippers or Tory Burch Revas on my feet (which one depends on how big my bag is that night) with fantastic Pedag insoles, then put the 4-inch curvy Chloe black leather crosshatch-strapped toe cleavage stilettos that have been dangling from my hands back on. How many of you ladies do this bait-and-switch on going out nights or even before and after work? Here are some of my bait-and-switchers:

If you’re dedicated to funky statement shoes that take the outfit’s cake like I am, you’re in luck, because tis truly the season of the shoe. “It seems like the shoe is really the fetish item that has taken the place of the ‘it’ bag,” Mickey Boardman of Paper Magazine heralded at the closing of the Spring 2009 fashion shows. “It’s all about who has the sickest shoe.”

Hallelujah! The shoes at the shows were incredibly creative and I’m sure some of that will trickle down to pret-a-porter and bargain basement!

Even the fiercest Iman would need a set of training heels to teach her how to walk in these Spring 2009 Dior embellished platform heels with a fertile goddess figure on the heel. You can’t be lukewarm on these babies if you love shoes! So what do you think? Would you wear them? If not, because of the height, the likelihood of snagging someone’s dress on the heel, the appearance, or something else? I’m not saying what I think of them till you do!

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The Spring 2009 Christian LaCroix show was amazing, extravagant, playful, feminine, and most of all, beautiful.

Everything was adorned with bold and unashamedly feminine details from the clothing, to the jewelry, the handbags, and the shoes.

Oh yes, the shoes - delicate chain and ribbon creations that stand as jewelry all on their own. This was candy for your feet. Delightful, delicious and decadent sandals that will make you feel like a princess every time you wear them, whether paired with an evening gown or denim. The attached anklet ’strap’ nicely manages to avoid being cliche. In addition to this bit of sparkle, I am particularly fond of how the graduated coloring of the ribbon straps bring a subtle and stylish ombre look to the whole shoe. These certainly fall under the category of Art to Wear.

[Photos Via Style.com]

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I just finished writing an entire post about fashion designers, Victoria Beckham and their evident love for shoes with ridiculous heels, oddly placed heels, or no heels at all. And then I flipped through the Aminaka Wilmont Spring 2009 collection, shown recently in London. I had never heard of this particular line before, so I did a little research. It is named after the designers: Marcus Wilmont and Maki Aminaka. They are a London based duo and their range is very classy and yet super edgy at the same time. You can even buy their stuff on Net-a-Porter.

All this seems fairly straight-forward. The Spring collection had a much more futuristic feel to it than their past stuff. Here are a few photos of their recent line:

Ok, so you decided to wrap your models’ feet in ribbons. Who needs shoes anyway, right?

WRONG!

(via Lengvi Daiktai)

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Heels without Shoes! I am baffled. Completely and totally. This looks cool on the runway and I am all about wearable art. I totally get the concept that some stuff that designers put up there is not really intended to be worn (Gasp! Perish the thought). But can you imagine the ramifications of a normal(?) person owning these? Imagine: you are at a fancy cocktail party and suddenly you step down on an hors d’oeuvre gone rogue. Trauma ensues. You have to remove bits o’shrimp from the ball of your foot.

With all this taken into consideration, it’s clearly only a matter of time until Posh gets herself a pair.

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Do you know what I have seen a lot of this Fashion Week season in New York, London, and Milan? Snakeskin shoes. Most of it has been fairly subtle: the texture has added an extra dimension to many of fine pair of footwear, but snakeskin coloring has been relatively scarce. Well, look no more! At Baby Phat, if you are going to do snakeskin, you are going to do it all the way.

Most of the looks in the show featured either a 70s, Austin Powers feel (the Heather Graham version, not the Elizabeth Hurley) or a luxurious Egyptian Queen motif. There was a lot of gold, a lot, of sparkle, and a lot of skin. The shoes were high and they were hot. Python trimmed in gold and bright bits of color. Here are some exclusive backstage shots.

These snazzy snakeskin heels were worn by the model that I worked with backstage. (The charming Hollis - check her out here)

This model is waiting to go on (and waiting and waiting - the show was announced as “starting” 3 times over the course of an hour)

And here it some more formal footwear. I love that pop of pink!

There was a very unusual vibe backstage at Baby Phat, during New York Fashion Week. I have worked at many many shows and I usually find that the primary overarching emotions are stress and outright exhaustion, especially in the models at the end of the week. The stylists and and Baby Phat folk were certainly stressed out (if you work for Kimora, I’m betting your anxiety is off the charts right before a show), but the models were surprisingly chill. There was music, there was laughter, there were many models laughing about the sheer quantity of skin they would soon be exhibiting before the world. The backstage area was dark and strobe lights from the runway filtered through as the base reverberated through the floors causing the clothing racks to rattle. So let’s see, loud music+dark, crowded room+pretty girls in tiny clothing = nightclub. So the verdict: All in all, it was pretty cool.

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Would Borat be welcome at a fashion show? What about Ali G? Or even Sacha Baron Cohen without the costumes and with charming girlfriend Isla Fisher in tow? None of these characters were present at the Agatha Ruiz de la Prada show in Milan, but Sacha certainly made an appearance. Bruno, Cohen’s fashion-crazed, alter, alter, alter ego literally stormed the runway. He not only managed to get backstage, but onto the runway where he stomped down with the best of them before security got involved. (Given the nature of the show in question, I suspect it took viewers a few seconds to realize that Baron Cohen was not actually part of the show.

Eventually the lights in the tent were turned off and as media and onlookers called “Luce! Luce!” security grabbed Bruno and hustled him out.

But this is shoeblog, so what does this have to do with shoes? Look closely at Bruno’s self-made runway get-up. In addition to a cape and practically every piece of clothing in his closet, Bruno has tied what looks like a Mukluk to his left leg. Apparently, even he cannot escape the lure of the furry bootie.

 To check out the looks of Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada for the Spring 2009 show, go here. De la Prada’s candy-colored surreal confections are worth looking at for the sheer weirdness of them. Envision a brighter, crazier Betsey Johnson. (Difficult, isn’t it?) I’m betting that the outlandish nature of this designer’s aesthetic may have figured in Baron Cohen’s choice of ambushee.

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