Sea of Shoes

The Three Day Shoe Challenge*

The other day my mom and I were talking about how sometimes, you don't get the value of your shoes simply because you don't wear them enough. So my mom came up with a challenge: we each go into eachothers shoe closets, pick two pairs we haven't been getting enough wear out of-and we can only wear those shoes for three days.

*I'm using 'challenge' lightly here because wearing two pairs of shoes over the course of three days is not much of a challenge at all...it's more wearing shoes that we normally find difficult to wear!

Here are the shoes we chose for each other:

From left to right: My challenge shoes: the flowered Biba sandals, and chunky peeptoe Marigelas.
My moms challenge shoes: the patent grey Chloe sandal boots, and the lucite heel t-bar Margielas.

We are only two days into our challenge, but we're already coming up with some exciting ways to wear our 'challenge' shoes. I've been wearing the Bibas for two days, I'm very excited about them right now too! They're such a summer shoe-mom and I actuall have a couple of pairs of shoes back from when Bella Freud was designing for Biba. Some excellent shoes were happening during her time at Biba and we're really happy to have some. I've yet to wear my Margiela shoes though!

My mom says she loves her Chloes even though she hasn't gotten much wear out them: they are much harder to work with than she anticipated. She was happy with my decision for her lucite Margielas, "they are lovely but I always pass them by. Having to wear them has made me realize how special and timeless they are."

Day 1; me:

For my first outfit I wore my Bibas, but I got out of my shoe comfort zone with a little foot bling-I thought it was fun with the floral designs of this shoe. I wear it with a rayon Dries van Noten cardigan, an Anthropologie slip dress, and a scarf I got at a thrift store.

Day 2; me:

I got this butterfly dress from eBay last year and I never wore it (why?!!) but it's so beautiful and I feel so girly in it! The light shoes with the black dress seemed cool to me and kept this dress from being too Morticia Adams meets Madame Butterfly.

Day 1; mom:

 

Yesterday mom wore her lucite Margielas with Hysteric Glamour jeans, a Banana Republic belt, and a crinkled silk shirt purchased at Boulevards boutique in Tulsa, OK.

Day 2; mom:

Mom wears her Chloe boots with a tie-dyed slip dress (Urban Outfitters) and cotton sweatshirt (J. Crew). She later reflected that she thought this outfit would be more age appropriate for me! I have to disagree, I think she looks great. Our dog Sash makes a guest appearance in this picture too-she's camera shy though!

We'll keep you updated on how the challenge goes and plan to do more in the future-now I've gotta run and meet my best friend for mexican food!

What I'm wearing today

Tonight I went to go see the new Batman movie-I'm wearing a vintage Adolfo wool cardigan that is part of a skirt suit, a black tube top, Miu Miu skirt, and my trusty Dries van noten buckle slingbacks. The feather clutch is a crappy purse I got at the thrift store last week-I just snipped the straps off of it.

Dressing up on Wednesday Night (image heavy!)

Here are the pictures I took of me and my mom and my sister after our shopping trip on Wednesday...sorry for the delay, a summer cold is slowing me down.

This is my sister's new Marc by Marc Jacobs dress-it suits her style perfectly (she calls it 'preppy with a twist') and looks fabulous with her peeptoe lace up Dolce and Gabbana heels.

Mom styled this outfit around her new Miu Miu snakeskin slides-a surprising find at a sale that I have to do another post on entirely. This shoe isn't typically her style but I think it's awesome none the less. When we were shopping she saw this top at Free People and bought it to go with these shoes-because they look like they were made for each other, don't they? Worn with Levi's skinnies (I have the same pair-an amazing score at our Levi's outlet-$9.99 and they are the perfect length to show off your shoes!)

I got this sheer floral blouse from Mango-kinda sleazy and kinda cheesy, but in the best way possible. Worn with my boob tube, also from Mango, and vintage Levi's and lace up ankle strap Givenchy's.

Carol got this dress at Free People-here she is pairing it with my old pair of silver Marc Jacobs boots, which look awfully cute on her!

Vintage Kansai Yamamoto jacket, my new gold tube top, Elizabeth and James dress, and lace up Prada peeptoe boots.  I'm wearing this dress backwards to show off my gold sequin tube top.
*DISCLAIMER-I don't have any idea where this outfit would be appropriate to wear. Maybe a concert...is Prince touring soon?

Why these shoes are the only ones I want this season

These shoes have stood out to me as the most directional of the footwear crop of winter '08, because frankly I'm confused right now what direction footwear is going. So many of the usual heavy-hitters that I count on (Prada & Miu Miu, Chloe, Lanvin) have gone in a direction that I can't even relate to. Some played it too safe (Lanvin, Proenza Schouler, Marni) and between this season and the last I can't help but wonder whether or not Miuccia Prada is dabbling in some serious drugs.

Left: the fairy floral shitstorm shoe; Spring 08, right: the 'bunny' shoe; Fall 09

From woodland fairies to furry forest animals-get out of the woods Miuccia, the shrooms are getting to you. These shoes suck on so many levels-the sillouhette is absolutely not flattering on the foot. Out of morbid curiosity, I have tried on the flaming fairy fiasco shoes and was dumbfounded how these shoes ever made it into production-in keeping with the woodland theme, my legs resembled tree stumps. Then I got angry-these shoes are mocking the Prada customer. Is this a case of the emperor's new shoes?

Last season Marni's superfuturistic acrylic wedges had shoe addicts everywhere speed dialing their sales associates to procure these shoes as quickly as possible. This season the shoes at Marni are a mashup of past seasons models, only with a big scoop of poop dumped on them and then thrown in the bland cycle on turbo-speed. Oh and did I mention the random chunks of tweed that make me want to barf?

Marni's attempt at playing it safe

What was with the batch of granny shoes, as evidenced below? Even though I bashed Miuccia's overly artsy foot binding contraptions in recent seasons, I can at least admire for putting herself out there. These shoes, however, are playing it uncomfortably safe. You have to ask yourself, how are these shoes relevant right now? These say nothing about how I feel about footwear or fashion. They're taking the fun out footwear.

From the left to right: Proenza Schouler's nod to 80's 'Nina's', Lanvin's WTF mary jane, and Nina Ricci's onesie-as-a-shoe

And as for Chloe, there really are no words. Let me just say that they could be the sole reason Paulo Melim Andersson was fired. Or at least they should have been.

Ingredients for Chloe footwear Fall 08: leaves, twigs, airplane glue, LSD.

This why I'm sticking to my guns with the Givenchy boots. Riccardo Tisci is a man whose shoes mean business.

Today's travels

Today I hung out with my mom and my little sister-AKA the best shopping partners I know. We had some errands to run but of course wanted to pick up a few things. Today we showed an amazing level of endurance-we left in the morning and came back around six!  Here are some pictures we snapped today!

We were in Mango-WIERD STORY: at lunch, we had all agreed that we really needed to put 'gold sequined tube top' on our shopping find list. We head into Mango a few minutes later only to find a glittering spread of metallic tube tops! That's pretty random, I mean a gold tube top?? Anyway it was a pleasant surprise-I believe you should have as many glittery pieces of clothing in your closet as possible.

Shopping is hard. We needed to sit. So we all took turns sitting in furry orange cup chairs at Barney's Co-Op while we tried things on. My mom is fanning out her Carolina Herrera skirt in a fairly ridiculous way-she wears it with a Banana Republic cardigan, thrifted jewelry, her Omega Seamaster watch, and ombre Prada peeptoes. I'll have to ask Carol what she was wearing, but I can tell you that her adorable sequined sneakers are from Juicy Couture. And me-besides the mongoloid expression on my face-a Dries van Noten dress I just got at a sale the other day and my Margiela sandal boots.

Better view of my outfit and a view of the back-my favorite part of the dress. I just realized I am surrounded by bras in this picture-was not shopping for bras, how futile would that be for Flatsy Patsy like me. Also, at some point I added a belt I got at Mango.
 

 

After our very long day I'm totally exhausted but we did dress up in some of our new things when we got home-and took pictures too. Results of dress up experimentation to come soon.

Wearing the sweatshirt

Yesterday: the afformentioned Dries van Noten skirt handed down to me by my mom, Marni shoes, the sweatshirt
Today: vintage Levi's, Miu Miu heels, a borrowed Omega Seamaster, the sweatshirt again
Another post to come soon, my days are busy lately!

Today's outfit

Comme des Garcons glove shirt, a belt from my mother's old boutique, the Russian Wedding skirt from her old line Atlantis Underground, Marni criss cross lucite heels, Y-3 feather bag

Finding those 'holy grail' items

I recently ordered this American Apparel sweatshirt online and I've been wearing it to death since I got it-even fresh out of the package it looks a bit worn in (the poly makes it less stiff) and it's so lightweight that it's perfect for summer. I only bought it in heather grey (and have since bought duplicates of it) because it's my 'staple' color-more basic then even black! The perfect grey sweatshirt is as basic to me as a crisp white button down. It dresses down more 'serious' pieces and for someone my age, it can transform something thats on the austere side into a more age approriate laid back look. Take for instance, the pleated navy floor length durndle skirt from one of Dries van Noten's earliest collections that my mom handed down to me: it's one of my most cherished pieces of clothing but it can make me a lot older than sixteen! A sloppy sweatshirt brings it down to earth.

I'm crazy about my new sweatshirts! What are your 'holy grail' pieces in your wardrobe?