I’m feeling a big return to the wicked end of the Belle Epoque for fall and it is sending me wild with glee. I had a feeling after Galliano’s incredible Fall/Winter show last year that we’d be heading this direction, but it took a while for it to settle down and flesh itself out.
I have for you today three highly wearable (as in they’re not big leather-ruffled glamazonian bastards, which I’d still buy and wear every day) pumps from the new fall season.
This is the Dior deco pump, available in blue and purple. It occurred to me that out of my not-inconsiderable collection of Diors, I’ve never bought a pair with the dangling C & D. Usually I think charms on a shoe look cheap, low-rent by their very aspirations to be posh (I’m looking at you Coach, D&B and Louis Vuitton monogrammed bags) but I love the element they add here. The heaviness of the suede and the crackle-finished kid might have been a little over-rich if the sleek silver wasn’t there to add light and a little discipline to the lines.
Bottega Veneta, a great old house with a recent facelift, is known as a sleeper luxury brand and they are all about beauty and restraint. Not restraint in an American “classic” way or a Germanic minimalist sense, but in a meticulous balance of opulance and scalpel-precise design. You wouldn’t think a peacock green, blue, purple and crimson brogue would look so restrained, but that is just how Bottega Veneta rolls.
I’m seeing more and more of this shortened almond toe recently and I love it. Between us, I’ve never been a huge fan of pointy toes. Too often they scream “Fashion Victim” to me. Russian designer (and son of a Siberian shoemaker) Max Kibardin, is relatively new on the scene, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to add him to my man-harem of pretend boyfriends. I’m loving his stuff at Saks and also?
Brother is FINE.
“…look cheap, low-rent by their very aspirations to be posh (I’m looking at you Coach, D&B and Louis Vuitton monogrammed bags)”
I love you
Comment by Lo — September 4, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
OOOOOH, gorgeous shoes AND a gorgeous man all in one post!?!
Bless you. =)
Comment by JayKay — September 4, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Test??? And Yummy!
Comment by Jennie — September 4, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Those Bottega Venetas want me to lick them, I can tell.
The Kibardins would want me to lick them, if they weren’t suede. I would never lick suede.
I just rub it against my cheek.
Comment by bristlesage — September 4, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
I can’t wear the shoes, but I’ll take the man!
Comment by Bree — September 4, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
Ooooh . . . Mrs. Hendricks is just dying to have a post about your man-harem of pretend boyfriends! Let’s all think of who we would include in ours. Sorry, must run!
Comment by Mrs. Hendricks — September 5, 2008 @ 1:01 am