mystery fashionista: hoofing it

Somehow, @ London's fashion week last September, I forgot to post this shot. With all my attention on the new silhouette from the platform booties, her shoes - and thus her look - looked a bit quaint. Now, with spring just around the corner, I'm realising that she was just rather fashion forward.




Saw this Mystery Fashionista outside Dover Street Market, smoking a quick fag & then dashing back inside (in winter, if it wasn't for the smoking ban, I wonder if I'd get ANY style shots). I didn't even get to see his or her face. I'm assuming it's a her: I've yet to see guys wearing these bad boys.

It's all about the shoes right now, isn't it? I feel like, if I were in a total shopping shutdown, I could survive on what's in my closet. But what makes this season unlike any before is the silhouette created by these wacky bovine-inspired cloven hoofs. Which leads me to...



More on the Fairy Godmother Shoe Game. Someone calling herself Ms. Scotch is in love with the Decoltissimo 85 by Louboutin, which - I swear! - was in the next batch I wanted to talk about (top left & middle, £340). Jimmy Choo is doing a similar one, the Izzy, for a mere £315 (funny how after a while with this game, that starts to seem cheap). Is it just me, or do you find it weird that Jimmy Choo isn't even designing the shoes any more? It seems a bit.. unfair.

I'm so glad that girly heels are coming back (not that they ever really left) cause I can shop my closet!



I was almost feeling that Christian Louboutin was losing his way.. I mean, some of these, it's just all a bit too much (can you imagine shelling out £1095 - about $1700 USD - for a pair of shoes & realising they don't go with ANYTHING?), but if you look through his collection, there really is something for everyone. I'm still feeling that he's one of the most prolific, creative shoe designer around.



Altho, Proenza Schouler are certainly giving him a run for his money (shown above).



Probably my biggest problem with Loubs - apart from the price, obviously - is that the brilliant, iconic thing that he's done (and patented) - making the soles red so we can tell at a distance who's got the real deal (you can actually get sued if you make shoes with red soles! How cool is that) is that now, he's kinda stuck with a colour that's not that easy to match. I'm not a big fan of red to start, and some, like the pink and purple baby on the left, look great with red. But then you get these beautiful green suede shoes, and have to ruin them because all I can think is: Christmas. And yellow & red... no thanks.

Coming up, I'm going to post some of the shoes you've suggested (esp, smitten with the Bess Rollover surplus army boots) but Mr. Dot is back - with three new custom white area rugs (designed by yours truly) & I'm going go to my lovely friend's baby shower @ Guy Richie's pub, then hoofing it to Dover Street Market. So if you see me there, give a shout out. I'll shoot you. ; )

the girl in the leopard loubs

When I was out on Gloucester Road the other day, doing errands, I saw Kaya (or Yoshi, her nickname) from a distance and, I swear, my eye was so drawn to her feet that they looked this large & clear to me, from a distance.



Thanks to you bloggers (okay, and LFW), I've developed such a hunger for height on feet, ridiculous height, and especially, a hunger for Louboutins. (And THESE Louboutins, specifically, altho other brands, like Asos & Office, are doing nice knock-offs). So much so that I was amazed to read that he's only been doing it since 1992: I somehow thought they traced back to Chanel days, and he was like a zillion years old (or no longer on this mortal coil. But thank goodness, he is! Alive, and well.). In this relatively short space of time, Christian Louboutin, as you all well know, has created something so iconic, with those shiny red soles, that he's even patented it.



But I never see them on the street. Not during the day, anyway, which is when I'm doing my street shooting. What I see on the street is usually footwear like Annie, yesterday: comfortable, cosy, Ugg-like footwear. Which is why this was such a 'find' for me. I mean, Kaya wasn't just, as they say, wearing those Louboutins: they were clearly wearing her, leading her along like two wild twin unruly puppies.



I thought she was with her friend, or perhaps, a sister, but it was her mother! Who was having some kind of conversation with her about whether to let me shoot her. I chose this background because I liked the texture of the cheap wood next to the animal print, but she was so painfully shy shooting her that the more I clicked, the more she seemed to try to literally climb into the background. She gave me this title, by the way, when she emailed me. 'Hi, it's Kaya, the girl in the leopard loubs'.

P.S. UPDATE:
Just heard from Kaya. She said it's okay to write what she told me after, that she was self conscious about being shot (altho she has her own blog) because she was afraid she'd look fat. That makes me absolutely mental: I had my stint of being too thin when I was a teenager. Now that I'm happy in my own skin, I eat what I want. But I'm aware I'm a fidgety person who burns a lot even sitting down. Still, it scares me when slim girls start talking like that.

Our bodies look different from our own perspective. Perhaps it has something to do with the position of our heads: it throws it all out of proportion.

Anyway, I thought that was a brave thing for her to let me tell all of you, and I'm hoping this will start an honest dialogue - as Alice has written recently in her blog, Little Miss London - about how the fashion industry can set up unrealistic expectations of body perfection. In her case, she hates her thighs. Do you have a part of your body you hate? Mine was my waist: that's where I put on weight. Now, I embrace my big belly! ; )

Oh, and sourcing: sweater dress from erin wasson x rvca • headchain by low luv • jersey/leather panel leggings by helmut lang • bag coco bag by aleander wang