Forget these sandals, if you can. What catches my eye is this statement:

Are shoemakers looking for faces now?

Then again, I don't suppose anyone is going to write "Nicole Richie has become the new foot of Jimmy Choo."

Mary Stella's thinking cap obviously fits well:

I like. It might be easier, if more cumbersome, to tie this to newer, presumably higher-tech cams, which you could borrow from the store or purchase outright. (If this is as big a hit as I think it would be, the price would come down rather quickly.) This might simplify the software development, and as a fringe benefit, given the sheer sophistication of the cam, you'd hear from some disgruntled fanboys: "You built a tricorder, and you're using it to order clothing?"

Which, if you think about it, is almost enough justification in itself.

Are you ready for size -2? No, that's not a typo:

An official match ball is 68-70 cm around: 27 to 28 inches. This is a size 6, maybe an 8. A size 0 woman measures something like 31-23-33, so a -2 would have about a 22-inch waistline. This is below volleyball size.

(Geometric digression: A standard 45-rpm record is 7 inches in diameter, just under 22 inches in circumference. If you need to imagine a minus-two woman, pick up a 45 and hold it by the edges.)

I was tempted to attribute this phenomenon to "vanity sizing," but according to Kathleen Fasanella, it doesn't really exist:

This is not to say that vanity doesn't play a role. Just ask Dave Barry:

Your zeroes and minus-twos? Why, yes, they will have fries with that.

(Via Neil Kramer, who has more Infiniti than I do.)

There's a scene in Bill Forsyth's Gregory's Girl that's always stuck with me. It appears that someone has it bad for Gregory's younger sister; in fact, the someone in question says admiringly, "She's only ten, but she has the body of a woman of thirteen."

At the time, this seemed innocent and goofy. Twenty-five years later, it sounds like a warning shot: somewhere between then and now it became de rigueur to turn tween girls into oversexed Bratz. A week doesn't go by that I don't get some Googler looking for risqué photos — even fake risqué photos — of twelve-year-old Dakota Fanning. One could argue, I suppose, that I don't deal well with female sexuality of any sort, and maybe that's even true, but I can't see any upside to having middle-school students looking like tired call girls.

Enter Up Stream Girl, which aims to be the anti-Abercrombie and/or Fitch:

And surely there has to be a middle ground between the burqa and the "Who needs brains when I've got these?" T-shirts.

(Discovered here.)

You hear the word "sweatshop," you automatically think of a humongous room full of miserable people sewing away, and you just know they'd dream about a place like this:

• Eight-hour work days
  
• Seamstresses earn two to three times as much as teachers and policemen
  
• Child labor is unheard of
  
• All overtime is paid
  
• Free medical care on site
  
• Three months paid maternity leave
  
• Employers must give breast-feeding mothers unimpeded access to their infants
  
• Forty-three paid vacation days per year
  

If only there were such a place ... oh, wait ... there is.

A car dealer around these parts used to bray about all the free stuff they threw in with the deal, with the tagline "What could be better than free?" I'd like to think this would have shut him up. (Endless.com is an Amazon.com offshoot that deals in shoes and handbags, but not even Amazon Prime is offering a shipping deal this remarkable. It expires on the 28th of February. I have been so far unable to identify this specific shoe; I spotted this ad on Go Fug Yourself.)

HBN Shoe, LLC is the manufacturer of something called Insolia, which pulls off this remarkable feat:

The developers of Insolia included podiatrist Howard J. Dananberg, founder of HBN, and Brian Hughes, an actual MIT rocket scientist.

It's stuff like this that gives me hope for the future.

Jacqueline Passey declares that yes, there is such a thing as vanity sizing:

Ten years ago she was 18 (I think); do teenagers get their own size scale? Not that anyone eighteen thinks (s)he's a teenager or anything.

Maybe it's time for something other than numbers. Example: In the early 1950s, hosiery manufacturers were trying to distinguish among a line of three or four sizes without using accusative terms like, say, "large." I shuffled through some advertising pieces from this period and happened upon a 1953 ad from Wayne Knitting Mills, who sold stockings under the Belle-Sharmeer brand. They offered four sizes, as follows:

Now obviously there's more description necessary for a dress than for a pair of nylons, but I, for one, would like to be able to go into the store and ask for shirts in, say, "Duff Man," rather than ask where all the 4X Talls are hiding.

It was almost 50 degrees yesterday when I hit the supermarket, historically a below-average temperature for this date, but a veritable heat wave compared to what February has been dealing us so far, so I wasn't too surprised to catch a glimpse of a woman in fishnets over by — well, it wasn't the seafood counter, so I suppose it doesn't matter where she was.

More than once I've mentioned that I just don't get fishnets:

And I was perhaps unduly pleased to hear a similar sentiment from someone who actually has worn them:

Well, that Blanche Devereaux, she could ... um, never mind.

Not being a regular Lane Bryant customer myself, for reasons I presumably need not explain, I hadn't noticed this, but it showed up in a newsletter I get: the LB catalog is being retitled "Woman Within."

I had no idea why, so I went hunting, and turned up this:

Not to mention the fact that the catalog and the stores will be under the same management once more. Similarly, Redcats' Lerner catalog is being supplanted by something called Metrostyle, and the Lerner name goes back to New York & Co., the retailer formerly known as Lerner.

Redcats also operates a catalog called KingSize, sort of a Lane Bryant for men, where I do buy stuff, which explains why I got this notification.

Do one's clodhoppers eventually become less clodlike? Possibly:

I wore a 13 from age 17 to about 40; for some inscrutable reason — middle-aged spread, maybe? — I now wear a 14.

I don't think the sizes have changed over the years, but I can explain neither my growth nor his shrinkage.

(Mr Brannock, should you be curious, invented this thing.)

An urgent plea from Donna:

Don't think of it as an extra three cents per pair; think of it as a contribution to urban aesthetics.

Angi describes the creative process for one particular pair:

Parameters set, and apparently met. On the other hand (on the other foot?), they can't possibly be as bad as these.

Caterina Fake on maternity wear:

There are workarounds, as it were, but:

I'd say something about "How bad can it be for 90 days?" but I'm almost certain someone would come back with "Try passing a soccer ball through your [fill in name of body part] and see how you like it."

Well, sort of:

The high heel is 3¼ inches; in the lower position, the heel is 1½ inches. And the tucked-away portion is inconspicuous except to someone viewing from underneath, something you'd presumably discourage anyway. Here's how it's done.

The line is carried in a few Northeastern stores and at Zappos.com; you can also buy directly from the manufacturer. They're pricey — $300 or so — but think of it as getting two pair for the price (and in the space) of one.

It seems they're using an entirely different rack: the medieval torture device. Rachel Lucas explains:

A commenter of the male persuasion attempts to explain:

Is that all there is to it, or is something more going on?

Fashion plate and part-time metaphysician Jessica Simpson has affixed her name to a fragrance for one's navel.

Immediate reaction: Shouldn't there be different applicators for innies and outies?

And what's to stop her from marketing, say, strawberry-flavored toe jam?

Matters of size, and other matters:

This is so sensible it's almost scary. I fear, though, that she would object strenuously were she to find out that someone had described her as "sensible."

And even more cosmetic crap:

Do me a favor: just don't call it a "fecial."

(Via Scribal Terror.)

Note to the mythical Average Guy: You were wondering how it is that you get by with three pairs of shoes while your girlfriend has sixty-seven and says she needs more. It's not necessarily a desire to dominate the closet in some domestic version of Risk; nor is it the elevation of the mundane to the status of an icon. (Well, it could be, if everything she has came from Payless except for those CFM pumps she saw on Zappos and bought with your credit card.)

What is closer to the mark, I believe, is that while you wear those old Chuck Taylors as close to 24/7 as possible, she goes through several different pairs, styles even, in a single day. Rachel corroborates:

She doesn't say whether she drives barefoot — which, incidentally, is not actually illegal unless one is barefoot up to one's chin, as it were — but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

This is, I might add, a major reason why you need not fear the succubus: at some point she'll change shoes, and there's your opportunity to escape.

Addendum: This obsession, if obsession it be, does not affect Syaffolee.

I am a big fan of both shortish skirts and strappy sandals, as I have probably mentioned entirely too often, but I don't quite get this open-at-the-toe hosiery, despite its construction of some "revolutionary Japanese yarn" that's supposed to keep you cool, thereby eliminating the major objection to hosiery in the summertime. A commenter noted: "The end of the stocking never coincides with the shape of your shoe, so you end up looking even dorkier than before," which seems logical to me. Maybe this would make more sense if it were cut off around the ankle, if you happened to own a pair of ankle-strap shoes. Moreover, if we're to believe some of the advertising these days, there are lots of women who will willingly put a lot of leg on display, but please, please don't look at their feet; they're never, ever going to consider wearing something like this. (And a not-so-perfunctory informal survey during this weekend's wandering about between film screenings didn't turn up a single person who really ought to wear it.)

Attila Girl contemplates the toeless hose I brought up yesterday, and she doesn't buy the premise:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, I suspect, understands this premise: the wire services have carried zillions of photos of her in shortish — but not too shortish — dresses, but you never, ever see her in sandals. Nor is this a Republican phenomenon; for all I know, Nancy Pelosi may knock around in Birkenstocks at home, but in her capacity as Speaker, she's conservatively shod.

About a month ago I made some mention of CAMiLEON Heels, which can be an inch and a half high or three and a quarter, depending on how you set them.

Now comes a driving shoe for women, based on the same idea if not precisely the same technology. Devised on behalf of Sheilas' Wheels, an insurance company in the UK targeting female drivers — they offer, for instance, handbag coverage up to £300 as part of Comprehensive — the Sheila Driving Heel is switchable between heel and flat with the touch of a button. It's being touted, of course, as a safety measure: "It’s astonishing," says Sheilas spokesperson Jacky Brown, "that so many women are putting themselves, their passengers and other drivers at risk by wearing the wrong shoe or no shoe at all whilst behind the wheel. Stilettos, sling-backs and strappy sandals aren’t the sensible choice when it comes to controlling a car." And while driving with no shoes is permissible Stateside and in parts of the UK, for some reason it's illegal in Scotland.

I must admit here that I can't see where this mysterious button is located, and neither can the writer for Autoblog, who also complains that "we waited almost a week for them to send us a pic of the shoes," which pic I have duly appropriated and slightly cropped.

It's called, um, Backless Lingerie:

And God forbid anyone should detect a VPL.

(Seen, so to speak, by Wild Bill. Possibly not safe for work.)

An informal survey of 2500 women by a British shopping center suggests that after age 28, it's time to toss out the miniskirts.

I am of course distraught at the possibility that someone might actually take this seriously: as Bill Blass is supposed to have said, the legs are generally the last things to go, and I've seen some spectacular stems on fiftysomethings. I continue to believe, however, that every woman has an ideal skirt length, and it's usually not around mid-thigh. (And if it is, you know where to find me.)

Well, maybe not the absolute worst — you might have to go back to Chinese foot-binding days for that — but this pair of whatever the hell they are demands a full flushing with eye bleach. Remember when "cruel shoes" meant "uncomfortable"? These are cruel to the observer. I imagine some wan fellow in the studio, feeling the pressure of a deadline, when suddenly it occurs to him: "I've got it! It's a boot and a flip-flop and a floor wax and a dessert topping!" Then, of course, his head explodes, because there is balance in nature. You can look at the entire outfit if you're so inclined, but trust me: it's not going to help. (There's also a snarky poll at that link.)

Trini got her first shipment from Woot's T-shirt operation, and it's a pretty decent piece of work, executed in 100-percent cotton by the American Apparel guys.

One thing is troubling, though: the fabric-care tag contains the ominous notation "not for use as pants."

This, however, is a tad weird: a patent-leather sneaker by Michael Kors.

What's next? Chuck Taylors being upgraded to "Charles"?

(Via Shoewawa.)

I have to admit, this pitch is unique:

Platforms contain integrated audio and video (for getting attention, I suppose), a GPS system, an alarm system, and hidden compartments for stashing cash and condoms and such. What I don't want to know is what happens when she steps in a puddle.

(Via Shoewawa.)

I have never quite made up my mind about toe cleavage: like its upstairs cousin, it hints at further delights, but I always wonder if maybe she's wearing the wrong size, or wrong style, shoe. This particular shoe is a design by Christian Louboutin, who usually doesn't push the envelope too much, but geez, Chris, if you'd cut this vamp any lower you'd have a sandal, fercryingoutloud. I suppose it would be fairer to see this shoe in context — Shoebunny, from whom I pilfered this thumbnail (!), has more pictures — and I figure that maybe the overall intent is to make legs look longer, not that Sarah Michelle Gellar, who's wearing the shoes in the picture, needs any help in that regard. Ultimately, I suppose, this is more ammunition for the folks who think toe cleavage is some sort of freak show, and I suspect you'll never get Miriam into a pair of these.

The girls of Go Fug Yourself show up at New York Fashion Week, and something about it seems vaguely familiar:

We will not entertain the idea that this particular Hasselbladder was trying to stirrup some trouble.

Now this is fascinating: Fashion-Incubator has scans from old Lane Bryant catalogs, 40 to 50 years ago.

Which, in turn, led me to look up Lane Bryant herself, who was born Lena Himmelstein in Lithuania in 1879 and shipped off to New York in 1895, supporting herself as a seamstress. ("Bryant" was David Bryant, her first husband, whom she married in 1899 and who died shortly after the birth of their child.) Mrs Bryant continued as a dressmaker, and some time after 1904, at the request of a customer, designed a chic maternity dress with an elasticized waist and a pleated skirt, a distinct departure from traditional maternity wear, which no one would ever see because you simply didn't go out of the house while you were expecting. It was an immediate hit.

In 1909, Mrs Bryant remarried, to Albert Malsin, who took over the business end of the Lane Bryant shop while she concentrated on design. New York newspapers, however, would not accept advertising for the store, what with all those evil maternity outfits on display. Eventually one paper did agree to run an ad, and when it appeared, the store was completely sold out within twenty-four hours. A second store had been opened in 1915, in Chicago, but feeling that they could not rely on newspapers, the Malsins opened up a mail-order branch, which by 1917 was bringing in $1 million a year.

This, though, is the story that gets me:

This, boys and girls, is how you build customer loyalty.

The catalog excerpts are also instructive, because while they did list sizes, they encouraged you to send in a total of eight different measurements, and if based on those measurements they thought you had ordered the wrong size, they sent you what they thought was the correct size instead.

Mrs Malsin died in 1951; The Limited bought the company in 1982. The original catalog still exists as Woman Within, operated by Brylane/Redcats, and the retail chain (with Web storefront) continues under Charming Shoppes ownership.

Or so Camilla Morton would have us believe:

Well, of course they're a weapon. They'd better be. Because you certainly aren't going to run away from anyone in those six-inch heels.

There is a downside to living half a foot closer to the clouds, though:

I suggest that if you're going to think of yourself as a work of art, you should probably take better care of your canvas.

Then again, I suspect my viewpoint lies along a different axis than hers:

If I get to the point that I don't notice anything above Rachel Weisz' ankles, either I've been affected by a combination of pesticides and radiation or I've been epoxied to the floor.

(Via Jezebel.)

Michele doesn't get the "shoe thing":

This is not by any means some kind of moral position, you should know:

Still, these are the Chuck Taylor facts:

Disclosure: I own eight pairs of shoes, half of them by New Balance.

At first, I thought it might be something like this:

But sub-meson brains are still in short supply these days, so if you want some imputed clothing movement, you must take other steps. As an example, Calle Rosenqvist's "Beat Dress":

Once the microphone picks up sound, things happen:

And it's a good way to become the center of attention without the nuisance of lingerie migration.

(Via Shiny Shiny.)

I'm sure somebody thinks this 10k gold rodent makes a really cool pendant. (I'm equally sure she doesn't.) The piece is part of the fall 2007 collection of Simon Cardwell's "Cheeky Monkey" label, and it can be had in sterling silver for about half the $500 price of the gold version. Incidentally, both pieces are recycled: the metals were presumably melted down from earlier jewelry and reused. This particular squirrel is the Eurasian Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), listed as "threatened" by the IUCN: apparently grey squirrels are crowding it out of its habitat. And it's probably better to commemorate the species by wearing its image than by wearing an actual example thereof; the squirrels I see on a regular basis would not take kindly to having lengths of metal tubing routed through their pert little tails.

Spats are coming back.

At least, someone hopes they are:

Remind me to shine up my walking stick.

A current exhibition at Paris' Galerie du passage is called "Fetish", involving the photography of David Lynch and the shoe designs of Christian Louboutin.

Of all the footwear on display, the weirdest, at least in terms of lack of functionality, is this pair of heels that you literally cannot walk in: says Louboutin, "They're only made for lying on your back." Well, um, okay. If you say so. Evidently this is beyond my Kink Comprehension Level. Then again, I grew up with Catholic schoolgirls in penny loafers.

(Via Catwalk Queen.)

Nikos Floros spent ten years making uncomfortable garments more uncomfortable — in the name of Art, of course. A sample:

Yes, those are beer tabs in the closure, and the fabric itself is strips cut from former beer cans. The complete collection consists of 14 pieces, which took nearly ten years to assemble. (The matching shoes don't look too awful, but I don't think any of this stuff is wearable — unlike, say, Nicole Moan's ceramic corsets.)

Pertinent quote from the artist:

(Via Shoewawa. Submitted to Electric Venom's Bite Me! and Outside the Beltway's Beltway Traffic Jam.)

And now, for your dining and dancing pleasure, another Shoebunny special. This is Petra Nemcova sporting a pair of Manolo Blahniks, and they're a bit more, um, substantial than some of the Manolos I've seen: the double ankle straps provide the illusion of heft. The shoes don't perturb me, particularly, but does this herald the return of patterned hosiery? Because if it does, I expect to be greatly perturbed for as long as this fad holds out. I can sort of understand the thinking — if you're not going barelegged, you might as well emphasize the fact that you're not — but it's very hard to pull this off and not look like "Oh, my goodness, there's a supermodel with ivy growing on her," or something even worse. For the time being, I will console myself with the thought that at least they're not fishnets. (And if you wear these, like these, and can demonstrate to my satisfaction that they don't make you look like you just got flung into the briar patch by Brer Fox ... but never mind, let's not go there.)

Not by you or by your significant other, unless you're dating Big Bird: these German-designed flats are actually composed of compressed birdseed, and presumably your feathered friends will drop by to nip at your toes. I don't think I'd wear these while mowing the lawn, and I don't think they'd be particularly useful if your favorite outdoor activity is kicking squirrels in the, um, nuts. (Purely parenthetical note: The working title for the wacked-out Sixties single "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman," by the pseudonymous Whistling Jack Smith, was "Too Much Birdseed." Obviously some pop Nostradamus anticipated these things.) On the positive side of the ledger, you have to admit, they're not as hideous as Crocs.

(Via Hippyshopper.)

Very stylish, these shoes, but fiendishly designed: the only direction you'll be able to walk is counterclockwise. (Via Scott Chaffin.)

In the process of reading this Donald Pittenger paean to photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston, I happened across this comment by Moira Breen:

It's been my suspicion that the mags buy into this solely because they think it assures access to the Gods of Couture. Harper's Bazaar has a semi-regular feature called "A Fashionable Life," in which someone on somebody's best-dressed list is photographed and interviewed, definitely in that order, and not once in the years they've run this feature have I ever seen any of its subjects dressed in the Halloween rejects that always seem to show up in the Hottest Styles from [fill in name of place with overestimated reputation for design] feature twenty pages earlier. The good stuff is timeless; the bad stuff, well, it will be replaced by new bad stuff in thirty days or so.

Shoewawa picked this as their Ugly Shoe of the Week, and it is indeed hideous: "[Marc Jacobs has] taken it upon himself to spit on the very name of poor little calves. Made — literally — from calf hair, this is the designer equivalent of a farmyard petting zoo; and while I'm usually not averse to leather footwear, this pair just about makes me cry." And if the appearance doesn't bring tears, the price tag will: $998.95 at Zappos Couture, which describes them as "fierce and a bit funky." If you say so, Zapp.

Addendum: I showed these (well, the picture anyway) to Trini; she found them to have no redeeming social value.

Fetiche just bought a pair of these, and I figured I'd give the rest of the resident shoe critics a chance to look them over. This oxford is called "Panama," it's by Michael Kors, and I liked the detailing on it, hinting at somewhere between the classic spectator pump and the sort of old-school wing-tip things out-of-touch shlubs like me wear to the Jersey Shore. The crinkly leather is a nice touch: makes it seem a tad less stiff without going too far into the realm of the flexy. You can't see it at this angle, but there's a little hardware logo at the top of the heel, for the benefit of those who simply have to know where these shoes came from. (I used to cringe at such things, but inasmuch as rather a lot of my shoes have large slanted Ns on them, I feel I have no right to complain.) I can't help but think this might be nicer in a slightly lower heel — say, three inches instead of four and a half — but then I'm not the target market for this shoe by any means. Zappos will sell you these in grey, chocolate or black for $132.95.

This is the FitFlop, which is being sold (for $49.95 $49.99) as "a workout in a shoe":

I assume this is the sort of wobbleboard you don't quite fall off of, and not the wobbleboard you hear in all those wondrous Rolf Harris records. Still, I'd rather deal with these than with any of those horrid sandals with plastic cobblestones they try to sell as instruments of massage: I actually own a pair of such, which is the primary reason why I never buy shoes online anymore.

(Via Shoewawa. And no, I don't know why I seem to be doing so much shoeblogging lately.)

In the process of denying an unhealthy interest in women's shoes, I happened upon this fairly nifty Mary Jane by Isaac Mizrahi for Target, a pair of which Sarah snagged a few days back. Apparently the guys in her office thought they were wonderful, which doesn't sound like any guys in my office, but then most of them are the sort who don't stare at shoes: they look you right in the C-cup every time. Me, I side with Sarah's co-workers: these are pretty spiffy. What's more, the price (thirty bucks) won't make your nose bleed, unlike some of the curious couture items I've mentioned before in this space.

As to said "unhealthy interest," I attribute it to growing up (1) short and (2) depressed: if you keep your head down all the time, sooner or later you're going to notice such things. It falls short of a fetish, however, for the simple reason that it has no role in my sex life. (Come to think of it, I have no role in my sex life.)

Target is determined to get your attention, even if they have to use nobody to do it:

Hey, don't go hating on those laws of physics. Besides, it takes some technotrickery to pull this off:

Which, of course, disappears the moment you put it on YouTube:

Still, if nothing else, if I ever find myself with an invisible girlfriend — I should be so lucky — I now know how I want her to dress.

This is "Rosabel," a gladiator sandal from Coach (now apparently retired for the season) that sells for around $150. I honestly don't understand the appeal of these things — they seem kind of bulky to me — though I have to admit, they look pretty nice here on Hayden Panettiere. This is apparently one of those times when I must yield to a higher authority, so Venessa Estrellado of Divavillage.com explains how to work these shoes:

Possible drawback:

I have no idea what size Hayden Panettiere (isn't this Italian for "Baker" or something?) wears, but since she's on the short side, I have to assume she's probably not being harshed by these shoes.

I always found this "Celebrate Diversity" T-shirt amusing, mostly because it hews to the actual definition of the word, as distinguished from the Officially Sanctioned Version that prevails in academia and certain political circles. And besides, I like guns. As one-time Presidential candidate Patrick Layton Paulsen once pointed out, "Who knows when you're walking down the street and you'll spot a moose?"

Or perhaps a pirate, which covers 8.33 percent of this T-shirt sold by Woot for about an hour and a half this morning. This is the graphic thereupon:

It's just a matter of time before you see these symbols everywhere, so commit them to memory now.

This is the Vernice Pop Pump by Miu Miu, not to be confused with the non-Pop Vernice, which is strictly monochrome and open at the toe. The Manolo, he explains it this way:

Which, of course, demands their inclusion here, even if Rachel hadn't raved about them:

And sometimes, I suppose, you must heed the call, even if it's collect. (Saks will collect $525 on each pair.)

This simple but appealing heel is Diva by "Emilio Luca X," which seems to be a store brand of Brantano, a Belgian firm operating stores in the suburbs throughout the United Kingdom. They call this "purple," which might be pushing it a bit, but they also have a pink which is closer to fuchsia. I like the purple better, though: it seems to have greater potential for drama. "You can do anything, but don't step on my non-blue shoes." (Disclosure: I have turned up the brightness slightly on this picture so you can more clearly see the ribbon-y thing across the front.)

This is, incidentally, the very first time I've seen a shoe pitch with the heel height specified in metric: 85 mm, about 3.3 inches. The price from Brantano is £38, about $78 these days.

(Via Shoewawa.)

The Manolo has recognized Rachel's talent and has bestowed upon her one hundred of the American dollars to spend at heels.com on, one may safely assume, heels. But which heels? I have no idea what strikes her particular fancy, and after looking over the available selections, I decided I'd just pick something I liked, and I'll take the heat for them should she find them unacceptable.

Which explains why you're looking at the Carlos Iconic Patent Pump by Carlos Santana (yes, that Carlos Santana), with an interesting faux-crocodile grain, a squared-off toe with vamp to match, and a towering 4¼-inch heel. This color is called "Azul Purple," and, well, we all know what I think of sort-of-purple shoes; you can also get this shoe in black or silver.

Disclosure: I originally went looking for something a bit more open and strappy, but decided that it would be better if I resisted the temptation to title this "Sandals Pa Ti."

According to the Humane Society of the United States, some of the fake fur you might find at retail isn't fake at all:

These brands generally are beyond my budget — usually my choices are between a real poncho and a Sears poncho — but I'm pretty sure that anything fuzzy I own is proudly synthetic. Now leather, that's another matter.

(Via the Consumerist.)

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art evidently knows me better than I thought:

This is the opening of the first entry to blog.mode: addressing fashion, an online exhibition by the Museum of fashions contemporary and otherwise, actively soliciting reader comments. (The site is set up as a WordPress blog.) One piece will be featured each day. My favorite so far (there are thumbnails of the items to come, but no text as yet) is this silk crepe dress, resplendently red, by Yohji Yamamoto, with a pair of curious curlicues above the bodice, a structure which, says the blog author, "recalls sea anemones in retraction or coral formations." As abstractions go, they're almost, I dare say, Brancusi-like.

The pitch for these Chloe sandals at Intermix calls them "bondagesque," presumably a reference to the humongous buckles across the back. I dunno. And I'm still wondering why there's a two-tone heel — and why these two tones? I'd like to think these would look good on someone, but they seem awfully clunky to me, and at $645 that's a couple of bucks each and every time you clunk.

(Via Shoewawa, which is looking for people to coordinate with these shoes.)

This has to be a hit:

It would be nice if you could remove it without taking half your face with it, too.

"Oh, you're always complaining," piped up the Invisible Girlfriend from the corner.

Fetiche decided that the last pair of shoes I put up here had no redeeming social value — truth be told, I didn't think much of them myself — so this time around I decided to post some shoes she actually owns. From the BCBGirls line of BCBG Max Azria, this is "Lora," a higher-than-usual (four inches or so) Mary Jane with a squared-off toe, also available in red. (BCBG, it appears, is an abbreviation for a French idiom: bon chic, bon genre, "good style, good class." And who would know more about French idioms than a Jewish-American designer of Tunisian extraction?) I took one look at these and thought, "Dillard's, one-twenty-five." Actually, Dillard's doesn't list them among the 95 pairs of BCBGirls shoes on their Web site, but $125 seems a tad high; they can be had online from other vendors for $110 or so, and for that matter, Dillard's has all the in-store BCBGirls shoes on sale this week.

At least one British observer seems to think so:

Oddly enough, I've addressed this issue myself:

Still, I'm not at the point where I can shrug off a price point like this.

(Via Shoewawa.)

What we have here is a pair of classic Manolo Blahnik pumps, apparently deployed without a whole lot of concern for their longevity.

Courtesy of Princess Sparkle Pony, this is the original caption to that wire-service photo:

Now I always thought she was partial to Ferragamo. Not that I pay the slightest bit of attention to the Secretary's legs, of course.

Dawn Eden, at the beginning of Chapter 10 of her best-seller The Thrill of the Chaste, quotes this noted shoe authority regarding Sex and the City:

Perhaps I spoke too soon, or maybe I have trouble counting notches, because Sarah Jessica Parker, during a New York shoot for the film version of Sex and the City, was spotted wearing these extremely strange boots, possibly clogs with a pituitary problem, footwear for which no one apparently has a kind word. (And no one seems to be able to identify them, either; not even Shoewawa's famed Ugly Shoes list turned up a reference, and I paged through literally scores of boots at Zappos. The things I go through for you people.) Admittedly, it's hard to disagree with Jess Cartner-Morley's assessment of the genre:

SJP might actually qualify on the "pipe-cleaner legs" bit, and normally I'd forgive her this sort of lapse in judgment — by my reckoning, she's still got some goodwill left over from L.A. Story — but you should see the dress she was wearing at the time: it's like Björk after a transporter accident.

Oh, I must retract: somebody has kind words for these boots. At the Sun, Bizarre columnist (now that's a title) Gordon Smart says:

In the absence of information to the contrary, I blame Patricia Field.

Trini's sister is getting married this summer, and as tradition presumably demands, she's dictated the outfits for the lesser members of the party. These are the shoes specified, "Jane" by David's Bridal, which comes in about eleventy-five different colors or can be dyed to match other stuff in the store. It's a pretty innocuous shoe, but Trini objected on humanitarian grounds: it would be cruel, she said, to make her wear heels, even heels this low, for any length of time, and she doesn't care a fig about any presumed advantages of the configuration. I opined that considering these shoes will likely never be worn again unless they're donated to Goodwill or something, it might not be worth the bother or expense. Bridezilla, so far, will not be moved.

This is Lumiere by Jimmy Choo, a sandal more conservative than fanciful. (And JC does fanciful pretty well: to see what I mean, take a look at "Lance," worn in a Shoebunny feature by Kylie Minogue.) It's a metric shoe, 100 mm high: for you unreconstructed fans of English measurements, that's 3.9 inches or so. The cut is described as "sharp and modern," which seems fair enough, though that squared-off buckle strikes me as being something of a period piece. As with any Choos, these will cost you dearly: $585, either in this shade or in fuchsia. Inevitably, I find myself wondering what the Lumière brothers would have thought of this shoe. It certainly lets in a fair amount of light.

The old pecking order for fabric, says Lisa Armstrong in Harper's Bazaar (March), is being upset by "moral considerations":

But the real winner in this particular derby is bamboo:

Still, there's more to green fashion than the seemingly-obligatory air of smugness:

Me, I'm waiting to see if anyone wears white after Labor Day.

This low-priced pump, or, as the Brits say, "court shoe," is inexplicably named "Chastity," and it comes in fuchsia (pictured) and bronze. Maybe it's the relatively modest (7.5 cm, just under three inches) heel that inspired the nomenclature, but the upper seems awfully, um, shiny to me, which for some reason seems to suggest something else entirely. Shoewawa approves, but also questions the name: "In fabulous, disco-esque glitter, these ... heels are certainly incongruous with the visions of convents and nuns' habits that 'Chastity' implies." I wouldn't go that far with the analogy, necessarily, but I'm willing to bet that Dawn Eden wouldn't wear these, even at a measly twenty quid. Besides, they're just too pointy: they might be useful for trapping insects in a corner, maybe, but they look like you had to lop off a toe or two to make them fit, in the manner of some of Cinderella's more pathetic relatives, and what's more, you elongate a shoe much beyond this, um, point, and suddenly it's transmogrified from beaux arts to Bozo.

I know several women who for various reasons won't, or can't, wear heels, and this is not the answer. I mean, it looks like a moderately-competent Photoshop effort instead of a real shoe, but no: it's a platform with no actual heel, designed by Antonio Berardi, and priced to sell at a mere £1800.

The official explanation:

I have to agree: you cannot wear them for very long. Then again, I don't think you could wear them for very long even if they had an actual heel: with the thicker platform, you'd be 5½ inches off the ground.

Megan McArdle poses a conundrum:

Actually, this particular bit of collective ghettoization benefits me, due to my peculiar configuration: included in my 1.83-meter height (five foot twelve, as Tam would say) is a whole lot of torso and not a great deal of leg, so I go for the Tall shirts and merely Big pants. My inseam, God help me, is a meager twenty-eight inches, probably a foot shorter than McArdle's, and she's only two inches taller than I am. Then again, I have almost enough of a waistline to get on the waiting list for acceptance as a Minor Planet. (All right, who's the wise guy who called me an asteroid?) Between Casual Male XL and the King-Size catalog, I can pretty much cover everything that needs to be covered, as it were.

"Don't you think the world needs more pink/orange/red shoes?" asks Phlegmfatale, and well, it's hard to make a serious judgment call from this angle (damn camera phones anyway), but the color scheme is kinda neat — she also has a pair in "dove gray/periwinkle/oxblood" — and the shape is playful without being completely absurd. It's Gorgeous by John Fluevog, and, well, let the wearer tell the tale:

The heel is a bit unconventional-looking, I suppose, but there's a lot to be said for support, and as Fluevog says, this shoe "adds a half inch to your height without looking too chunky," which is something you can't expect from the all-too-ubiquitous platform. And the idea of keeping the design fresh with limited-edition color schemes somehow appeals to my sense of continuity: after all, I once strolled into a New Balance store and requested the most current version of an existing shoe I'd gotten used to.

Unless somebody fell into the machine where they melt down the old shoes into new material, or something like that. This is "Desire + Triton" by Melissa, and it's made from some plastic material called Melflex, which is not your grandmother's PVC by any means:

I suppose I could argue that 99.9 percent might be technically only partially rad, but I suspect it's far better than the industry average. And since the shoe is "extremely flexible," it's also presumably free of cruelty to your feet — unlike, for instance, this atrocity. The price of $58 is also at least reasonably uncruel.

(Via Popgadget.)

Which, of course, means "What would Reba wear?" "Reba," of course, is Oklahoma homegrown hottie Reba McIntire, who now has her own line of shoes which presumably represent what she would wear. She's picky, though, and not for the usual reasons: "I've had foot problems all my life," she says, "and [I] have to have certain types of shoes that are very comfortable. Heels can't be too high, and I like lots of cushioning." "Suzy," shown here, is one of eight styles which are being sold exclusively through Dillard's. The upper is a blend of leather and stretch fabric, the lining is pure sock material, and the heel is a lowish 2½ inches. Sixty-nine bucks will buy you Suzy; the priciest shoes in the line are only $79. (If you're curious about Reba's foot problems, well, she suffers from Morton's neuroma, a condition which, when it flares up, is usually dealt with by kicking off one's shoes, which unfortunately isn't always an option.)

When you're a five-year-old diagnosed with Type 1 (formerly "juvenile") diabetes, schlepping around the little insulin pump is a decided inconvenience, as the big sister (she's 11) of one such five-year-old explains:

What to do? Big sister designs a dress:

Kailey Caldwell, a straight-A student from Ammon, Idaho, took this idea to the Invention Convention in Boise, where it placed third; she's thinking about applying for a patent. Sister Whitlee just loves it.

(Via Fark.)

The Manolo has given his endorsement to these shoes, which he describes as "the high heels that are both comfortable and stylish for the daytime wearing," not an inconsiderable set of virtues. You're looking at the Wanda Air Sling by Cole Haan in Ivory Patent — it also comes in black — which incorporates Nike Air technology right inside that three-inch heel, presumably providing some serious cushion. (No licensing issue: Nike, Inc. has owned Cole Haan for the last twenty years.) In specifying "daytime wearing," the Manolo hints that these really aren't shoes for a night on the town, and I'm inclined to agree; however, they look fairly comfy, they're nicely lined, and while they're inevitably pricey — Zappos sells them for $279, and apparently they haven't shown up at Bluefly yet — they don't look like they'll go out of style in the next fifteen minutes either. Crish Zaragoza of Fashion Juice [warning: background music] has pictures of other Cole Haan/Nike Air shoes.

Me, particularly? Not much, since I am (1) a guy (2) without an enormous amount of disposable income. On the other hand, it makes damnably good blogfodder at times.

For instance, I bring you the results of a survey by British retailer Debenhams, which names the push-up bra as the Greatest Fashion Invention Ever. Elsewhere in the Top 20, stilettos claimed the #4 spot, just ahead of the Little Black Dress. I note with no particular dismay that Rudi Gernreich's attempt at a topless swimsuit did not chart.

(Via Dan Collins.)

Fashion, like magic, relies on misdirection and illusion: if there's something in the outfit you'd just as soon they didn't see, you carefully rearrange things to draw attention to something else entirely. So far, this is the only justification I've been able to come up with for these Cut-Out Contrast Socks by Emilio Cavallini, which are nominally black but which have a very obvious hole, outlined in white in case you thought the hole wasn't obvious enough. In the illustration they seem to be compensating for nondescript shoes, but, the eccentricities of lad mags notwithstanding, I was under the impression that socks with heels were pretty much a dead issue by 1990. These cost £6, around twelve bucks, so it's not like they're using less fabric and passing the savings on to you.

"It's a bold bold choice for a bold bold girl," says Shoewawa. Preferably a bold bold girl who will remember what she bought, so when she finds these in the bottom of the laundry basket she won't panic and toss them into the dustbin with all the other socks with holes.

What you're looking at is "Hali" by Report, a vaguely retro-looking wedge which, at least in this shade — there are four available — looks like the wearer has been busy kicking daisies. (Given my luck with daisies, I'd kick 'em too.) The upper is real leather, the sole is something else entirely, and the heel is a modest two inches. Zappos sells these for $84.

Erin at A Dress A Day bought them in black, and wound up returning them: "I wanted them to work, badly, but they were too narrow across the ball of the foot, and the last thing you want in a low-cut shoe is overflow." Indeed. And she had one further objection: "Also, I don't like peep-toes where you only see one toe; it feels too 'my talon, let me show you it,' to me." Which leaves "Hali" with one discernible redeeming social value: it's not a Croc.

Once upon a time I made reference to "really insubstantial shoes", and I was probably thinking about something like this at the time. It's "Krinkle" by Via Spiga, in a color called "Taupe Land Snake." Really. There's also a "Copper Land Snake," which sounds even more menacing. As strappy sandals go, these are up there with the strappiest. The upper is embossed leather; the heel (3½ inches) has a metallic appearance. Sara at heelcandy.com gives it thumbs up:

The shoe weighs a whole six ounces; Zappos sells the pair for $189, which works out to $252 a pound. Lack of substance doesn't come cheaply.

Dram is a sandal for guys, by Reef, and it looks like, well, yet another flip-flop.

Until you notice this:

Yep. You can store three ounces of liquid in the heel. Whether you'd want to drink it after that — well, maybe they can sell it to a drunken fart like René Descartes.

"Dram" sells for $45 at retail.

(Via Shoewawa.)

Disclosure: Reef is a nominal sponsor of this site I run, or at least of the theme it uses.

There are brand extensions, and then there's this: Crocs with a three-inch heel. It's called Cyprus, and it's available in half a dozen plasticky-looking color schemes. "Fashion fused with comfort for the ultimate summer style," they say, and well, I hope it's comfy, because it looks about as fashionable as a Nehru suit, if a smidgen more contemporary. Shoewawa gave it "Ugly Shoe of the Week," a pretty brazen award given the sheer fugliness of some of the shoes they've recently reviewed. Me, I've seen worse, and perhaps so have you.

"How should Hillary Clinton dress if she wins?" asks Harper's Bazaar this month, and by way of suggestion, eight designers have furnished pictures of recommended outfits, onto which the magazine has Photoshopped the Senator's head. Some of the recommendations, I suspect, were more serious than others: while a 60-year-old woman could wear this impressionistic dress, she'd almost certainly balk at the ripped fishnets and the torturous-looking shoes. Of the bunch, the most appealing outfit was a Donna Karan high-necked knit with matching bicycle helmet and dark, dark hosiery, but I can't imagine it on a President of the United States. (Well, maybe on Rudy Giuliani some weekend.)

The best advice, I think, came from elsewhere in the magazine. Opines Ashton Kutcher:

For a while, Oscar de la Renta seemed to be filling that position, but the campaign trail, I suppose, does not lend itself to a regular schedule of fashion consultation. And Robin Givhan sums up the predicament well enough:

Unfortunately for Mrs Clinton, that's been Condi Rice's slot.

The Manolo, he likes these shoes by Alexander McQueen, and even argues that the 4¾-inch heel is not too high. Some of his commenters, they beg to disagree:

Or:

Also much too high, perhaps, is the price: Zappos sells these for $994. Then again, if you have (1) tons of money and (2) utterly gorgeous feet, what's a thousand dollars?

Addendum: TJIC notes: "You can buy a pretty darned good lathe, or half a cabinetmaker's tablesaw for that kind of money. Heck, I think I once bought a 50 caliber rifle for about that much."

Can you actually wear these with the traditional Little Black Dress? I'm going to temporize and say "It depends on the accessories," and leave it at that. Style Spy is enthusiastic about this tri-color pump by Giuseppe Zanotti, giving it an emphatic YES! And I like it too. The color scheme is maybe a trifle loud — one of Style Spy's commenters hinted that coloration of this sort would keep you out of reindeer games — but