Kei Kagami…
Madonna’s new shoe line
Celebrity shoe labels usually fill me with dread at worst and disinterest at best, but this is one that I am actually excited about. Madonna is planning to launch her own footwear collection this autumn as part of her new Truth or Dare Label. The shoes will be created in conjunction with the international retail accessories giant Aldo, and will be available in major department stores.
So what can we expect from this new collection? Apparently there will be 60 styles ranging from $89 to $349. Unlike her Material Girl label which was aimed at teenagers, Truth or Dare will target women from 27 to 50. According to WWD Footwear News, the collection is “dance-inspired”. I’m not sure exactly what that means, and I have to admit that the few photos I’ve seen from the upcoming collection (the shoes immediately above and below this paragraph) are not filling my heart with ecstatic anticipation, however I’m going to remain optimistic until I see the full collection.
Madonna’s own stylist Arianne Phillips will be the creative consultant on the project, and apparently Madonna had a much larger part in the design process than most celebrities undertake. Ms Phillips spent a lot of time with the singer analyzing the footwear she has worn over the course of her career to create a provocative collection of essential styles. Now that does fill me with enthusiasm, because no matter how you feel about the Material Girl, there can be no denying that she has an incredible sense of style.
NOTE: The fabulous gold shoe at the top of this article is not from Madonna’s collection. It’s Kobi Levi’s “Blond Ambition” from 2011.
Francesca Giobbi revisited
More Brazilian exuberance in the form of Francesca Giobbi’s beautiful shoes. I wrote an article over a year ago profiling Ms Giobbi’s footwear, but at the time her complete collection was not available outside of Brazil. Only a few of her styles were available by mail order through a separate company, so the rest of the world was denied fabulous shoes like these….
But that’s all changed. Now, all of her new styles are available to order directly through her website, and there is an English language option on the site.
The prices on the site are in Brazilian reals, but don’t let that worry you. The site uses a secure payment system and they accept all major credit cards. (At the time of writing this article, one Brazilian real is equal to just over 50 US cents, but that changes daily so check the exchange rate the day you place the order.) Each style is available to buy individually, and there are also discounted prices listed for buying multiples of a single style for stockists.
All of the shoes are still hand made in limited quantities. Ms Giobbi continues to focus on strong silhouettes, bold textures, and design elements inspired by the Brazilian landscape. Hand-painting and laser cutting techniques are used more liberally in her recent collection with charming results.
Please support independent shoe designers.
Snezana Krejic
More of my new found obsession with eastern European shoe designers in the work of Serbian based Snezana Krejic. Her designs are typical of what I have come to associate with fashion from this part of the world: unusual, dramatic, and distinctively non-Western.
Ms Krejic graduated from the Polytechnic College in Belgrade, Serbia with a degree in design, specializing in leather products. She started out designing leather clothing, but turned to shoe design in 2000 after her experience working in several Serbian shoe factories.
She issued her first shoe collection in 2001 for Giorgio, a major footwear manufacturer and retailer in Serbia. In that same year she helped found FormART, a progressive Serbian design group that includes everything from fashion designers to industrial designers and participates in design exhibitions all over the world.
Since 2006 Ms Krejic has created small collections of handmade shoes and accessories under her own name, and she also designs in cooperation with the fabulous Serbian fashion designer Natasa Saric. Side projects include designing costumes for theater productions, and this influence definitely spills over into her fashion designs in a very charming way.
Her boots are particularly exciting, I think. She must think so, too, because she includes a lot of them in each collection.
The fact that the collections are small and handmade allows for a lot of experimentation. These designs don’t have to appeal to a wide audience, so the detailing can be very playful.
Like most of the footwear coming from this part of the world, Ms Krejic’s designs are frustratingly unavailable in the West. The best way to get them is to visit one of her shops in Belgrade, Serbia – the shop addresses are available on her website. You will also find contact details there – perhaps you can use your powers of persuasion to talk her into selling the shoes via mail order.
Please support independent shoe designers.
Goodbye 2011
It was a great year for shoes, like the fabulous pair from Chang Jun Kim pictured above. There was a lot of innovation with materials and silhouettes, and liberal use of one of my favorite design elements: deconstruction. Here are a few gems from the past year.
Nicholas Kirkwood (left) and Ruthie Davis (right):
Mark Charles:
Lerre (left), Gianni Barbato (center), and United Nude (right):
Edmundo Castillo (left) and Cinzia Araia (right):
Kalliste:
Iris Herpen for United Nude:
Daniele Michetti:
Aoi Kotsuhiroi (left) and Jonathan Leslie James Charlesworth (right):
Alejando Ingelmo (left) and Tania Spinelli (right):
Burak Uyan (left) and Giacomorelli (right):
Gianmarco Lorenzi (left and center) and Gianvito Rossi (right):
Laurence Decade (left) and Georgina Goodman (right):
Joanne Stoker:
Camilla Skovgaard (left) and Aperlai (right):
Gio Diev (left) and Walter Steiger (right):
Zuzana Serbak:
Victoria Spruce:
Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog, and please come back for a visit in 2012. I know times are tough and money is tight, but if you plan to splurge on a new pair of shoes in the new year, I urge you to consider an independent shoe designer.
Happy New Year to all you fabulous shoe lovers! xo
Julian Hakes’s Mojito Shoe
Meet the Mojito shoe. It had quite a long journey from conception to production, but it’s finally going to be available to purchase.
The Mojito shoe is the creation of architect Julian Hakes. He says the design happened by accident when he was trying to figure out what parts of the shoe are needed to support and protect the foot. By wrapping tracing paper around his own foot and exploring different design options, he realized that a shoe really only needs to support the heel and the ball of the foot. Everything else is extra. And so the original mojito shoe was born, an ingenious design made from a single strip that wraps around the foot, named because the prototype resembled the spiral curl of lime found in a mojito cocktail (If you haven’t had one of those, I enthusiastically recommend it.)
The original Mojito shoe prototype, shown above, was possible because of the materials it was made from: carbon fiber laminated with rubber on the floor side and leather on the side that touches the foot. The carbon fiber gives it both the strength to support a person’s weight, and the springiness necessary for movement. Here is the view from above…
The response to the design was very enthusiastic, and Mr Hakes was besieged with requests to put the shoe into production. Fortunately, he bowed to pressure and spent the next year or so developing the shoe for production. The design was tweaked a bit; the elegant simplicity of the original has been turned into an exuberant brush stroke of a shoe.
Mr Hakes has upped the appeal even further by making the shoe available in a wide variety of luscious colors. Here is just a small selection:
Mojito shoes will be available to buy online and in retail outlets from March 2012, and indications are that a pair will sell for around $200. Further information about availability will be posted on Julian Hakes’s Facebook page, and you can get further information about Mr Hakes and the mojito shoes on Mr Hakes’s website.
Please support independent shoe designers…and architects who design shoes!
All images used with kind permission of Julian Hakes and the Hakes Shoe Team.
Minna Parikka revisited
More irresistible footwear by Ms Parikka, including designs from her superbly titled collection “Women are Dangerous Animals”.
There are plenty of her signature themes including hearts, embossed leather, and surreal ornamentation:
Some glamorous new designs seem to be influenced by her work with burlesque artists…
…and as always there is her fantastic use of vibrant color…
I’m happy to see the increasing number of accessories in each collection, and am particularly fond of the gloves.
Read more about Minna Parikka here; for information about retail outlets and for her online shop, check out her website.
Please support independent shoe designers.
Elizabeth Dunn
Elizabeth Dunn is new to the world of shoe design. Really new – her SS 2012 collection is only the second one she has issued – which makes the originality of her designs even more impressive. Her first collection was featured in the London Mavericks show at London Fashion Week in 2010. That first collection included this fantastic mary jane with the removable flower detail:
Ms Dunn is a Cordwainers graduate, currently based in East London. She worked as an assistant to Cleo B before designing under her own name. She says she is inspired by her native North Yorkshire and you can definitely see that in her designs: the sturdy shapes, the muted colors, and the timeless style.
That makes it sound like her shoes are conservative, which is so not true. She often starts with a classic style, but then adds an unexpected element for an unconventional effect.
Craftsmanship is very important to these designs. All of Ms Dunn’s footwear is made by hand using traditional English shoemaking techniques; these shoes are meant to last a long time.
Ms Dunn sources as many of the materials as possible within the UK to ensure that the quality is excellent and the shoes will age well.
The quality of the craftsmanship allows for beautiful detailing.
Elizabeth Dunn footwear is made to order. Information about designs and pricing is available through her website.
Please support independent shoe designers!
Modzori
I love the idea of convertible shoes, but often the reality doesn’t live up to the concept. Either the conversions don’t work very well, they feel uncomfortable on the foot, or at least one of the style options looks a little … odd. Modzori promises to avoid all of those problems with their designs, each of which provides more than one style option.
Modzori creator and designer Yelena Shmurak has a patent pending on the clever design that allows the upper to be held securely while the shoe is on the foot, but is easily detached to allow for a change in style.
There are several transformation options with Modzori designs. Reversible uppers:
Uppers that offer a variety of styles:
And three different sole heights:
This is a new company and the number of styles is limited, but the concept is fun and interesting and I hope we see a lot more from them in the future. A list of retailers is available on the Modzori website, and several of those retailers offer a mail order option.
If you like the concept of convertible shoes, check out Mohop.
Please support independent shoe designers!
