Italian Street Style

[Thefrenchy]

Oh, tell me if you find the article because it fascinates me

 

[tylw]

^i will, but i don't know louise's last name. do you know who she is? she's at all of the fashion shows, so i suppose she works for a major publication.

 

[tylw]

here's a nyt article from october, including said cruel shoes....

Paris Notebook
Killer Designs or Killer Shoes?

By ERIC WILSON
Published: October 11, 2007

STANDING outside an art gallery off the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau last Tuesday, the director Sofia Coppola was overheard whispering with friends about an exhibition of David Lynch photographs that showed women on their knees, or reclining, or revealing themselves to the camera, wearing nothing but Christian Louboutin shoes. She uttered the word “bondage” with such potency that it hung in the night’s humid air, as if she had uttered something illicit.

For as much as the spring collections in Paris last week romanticized traditionally conservative notions of dress, as in those long day dresses, garden prints and nipped-waist New Look suits, something more sinister seemed to be happening beneath the surface. More precisely, it was happening on the models’ feet, expressed in the design of shoes that could just as well have come from the Lynch-Louboutin exhibition, which was titled “Fetish.”

Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga and Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent, for example, offered refinement in their clothes, yet paradoxically showed them worn with shoes that looked aggressively fetishistic or worse. At Balenciaga, the models’ legs were caged in futuristic footwear made of metal plates laced up to the knees with braids. At Yves Saint Laurent, the soles of Mr. Pilati’s needle-thin stilettos were replaced by a thin metal rod that connected the heel to the toe, leaving the most sensitive — some would say erotic — underbelly of the foot vulnerably exposed. The models looked as if they were walking a tightrope, and the audience was made to feel alternately fascinated and terrified.

“After seeing shoes that were clunky for so long, your eye has become accustomed to the big platform,” said Amelia Vicini, the senior fashion editor of Town & Country. “So the shoes at YSL seemed fresh. The reed-thin heel seems really modern.”

The appearance of so many shoes that were either ingenious, architecturally marvelous or potentially murderous gives credence to what some designers have predicted is a fashion movement away from the It bag, since there are now so many self-proclaimed It bags that no one can really keep track of what It is any longer.

So now comes the It shoe, more insider-y, more daring for consumers to pull off. And Paris offered some of the most breathtaking (as in, how would you ever wear them) examples of the season. At Chloé, the heels were inverted triangles, ending in a sharp point, as if the wearer were standing on a shark’s tooth. At Nina Ricci, heels curved inward like thick bear claws.

Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy offered gladiator styles that laced to the knees, in sandal and stiletto variations. Alexander McQueen included a pagoda shoe in his show that elicited applause for the model who wore them without falling; and Antonio Berardi showed a high heel on an elongated platform at the toe that actually had no heel (a style similar to ones Marc Jacobs did for his New York show).

“When you walk, it is almost on tiptoe,” Mr. Berardi said. “You look really dainty.”

Dainty? Perhaps dainty like a faun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/f...42&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

 

[Thefrenchy]

aah thanks you're fabulous!

 

[shoppingirl89]

Thanks for finding the article!

 

[tylw]

^you're all welcome, but it's not the same one as the louise article. however, i think we can all now imagine what those shoes feel like (no fun!).

 

[fairy]

its a mystery to me how some people think that looks glamourous...walking like ur tip-toeing...whats glam about that?

 

[tylw]

doesn't marc jacobs have similar shoes this season? i appreciate at least that berardi went all the way. maybe we can think of it as an aesthetic exercise, but i agree no relation to reality.

 

[tylw]

the sartorialist

style.com

 

[tylw]

ibid

style.com

 

[tylw]

ibid

style.com

 

[tylw]

the sartorialist

 

[Aby]

Thanks Tylw, I love the last look.
And the woman with the leopard coat covered in tulle in post 322!

 

[fairy]

^^its truly awful

 

[tylw]

elle.com

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[tylw]

elle.com

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[tylw]

elle.com

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[tylw]

elle.com

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[tylw]

elle.com

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[LANZO_358]

Europeans have the best style imo. I can't wait to travel there this summer!!!! I'm loving this thread.