Designer Shoes

Archive for October, 2009

Victoria Beckham has a reputation for advertising clothes, shoes, handbags and just about anything else that can be draped around her. However, the years of showing off other people’s work seems to have frustrated Posh Spice to the extent that she has decided to make her own line of designer shoes and handbags! Good old David has even offered to built her a design workshop (probably not by hand).

One of Victoria’s friends is quoted in The Sun as saying “Victoria is tired of promoting other brands. If she wears Christian Louboutin or Hermès people go and buy it. She thought, ‘Why can’t I do this with my own line?’” Like her or not, she has a point!

Already her clothing like VB Clothing has attracted the likes of J-Lo and Claudia Schiffer, so who knows what new celebrities will be lured into this new venture. Even more interestingly, perhaps we’ll see a Shoe-Off between Beckham and Crawford! Let’s take bets; who’ll have a bigger net income after a year? Crawford probably has more personal fame but, at the end of the day, Victoria is a Beckham…

In case the world wasn’t already too full of insecure teenagers and documentaries about fat people; designer shoes guru Christian Louboutin recently declared that Barbie (yes, the doll) has ankles that are too fat to wear his shoes. In case you’re confused and wondering why on earth a designer would be talking about a doll; this year is Barbie’s 50th anniversary and various designers are releasing their own versions of the doll. Louboutin is releasing a triad of dolls, each of which will wear a Barbie-sized version of his famous footwear – once they have had ankle-surgery to make them fit. As if anybody could care either way!

For some unfathomable reason, this nonsense even made the news, in which a certified plastic surgeon declared that Barbie’s calves don’t have a full-enough curve to them. That’s right kids; even if you look like Barbie, you’re just not pretty enough. It’s on the news – it must be true!

Well hooray for us and our constant desire to mess with our heads and the heads of those around us (not to mention their legs!)

I don’t know why you’d ask me, but if you did inquire as to my opinion on the role of large businesses in helping the western world cope with the financial recession; I’d probably say something along these lines.

Given that is was thoughtless spending, borrowing and lending that bought about this global recession in the first place, it seems that it would be thoughtful of big businesses to start gearing their products around teaching people to spend wisely and be happy without needing extravagance .  Perhaps this isn’t a responsibility as much as it would simply be a nice, thoughtful gesture – but even so, it would seem about the worst possible idea for them to make their products even more outrageously excessive and suggest that the hard times are over. 

So, trust Prada to come along with this; the Miuccica collection at the Milan Fashion Week – crystal-decorated shoes, with glowing transpart heels, designed to symbolise the end of the financial recession, or so say the fashion experts.  Unfortunately, I believe the financial experts have already been quite clear about the nature of the hard times and concluded that they have, in fact, barely begun.  So, no matter what the “fashion experts” may be implying; you probably shouldn’t buy these shoes.  That’s how we all got into debt to start with – remember?

When you think Cindy Crawford, you think entrepreneur – right? Alright so maybe the whole supermodel, writer and actress careers are slightly overwhelming already, but apparently Cindy’s ambitions know no bounds – as she is now intending to launch a new line of designer shoes! The collection is to be called Cindy Crawford’s Fifth Avenue which, when you add her furniture line (Cindy Crawford Home Collection) to the three aforementioned professions, seems to make sense.

By combining efforts with Deichmann, a German shoemaking company, Cindy intends her shoes to be affordable, yet classy. What counts as affordable in Cindy’s book(s) is yet to be seen, though rumours are that the collections will sell at around the £30 mark. Her reasoning behind the project echoes the words of Aruna Seth in September; “I love shoes, just like any other woman” Crawford declared, stopped just shy of Seth’s unashamed “I wanted to make women’s shoes so I could wear them myself”. It will definitely be interesting to see whether Cindy will wear her own affordable £30 shoes, or whether her celebrity status won’t allow for it…

Either way, I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to Cindy Crawford revealing her latest avenue.

Curved-sole shoes have always looked like a gimmick and now experts are saying that’s exactly what they are.  According to the Sketcher’s Shape-Ups campaign, their shoes help you “get in shape without going to the gym” – which is a nothing-claim from the outset.  It doesn’t matter what shoes you wear, or even whether you bother wearing shoes; if you walk ten miles every day, you’ll probably get in better shape.  Putting on some shoes is not going to make the slightest bit of difference – it’s what you do in them. 

So, what are you meant to do in them?  Well, apparently the idea is that the rocking soles make it harder to stand upright – working your muscles harder and burning more calories when you walk around.  However, as podiatrist Marlene Reid points out, “The shoes limit normal motion in the foot.  So you may be under-using some muscles and overusing others.”  Exercise physiologist Pete McCall from the American Council on Exercise adds to this, saying the effect on weight or muscle tone is likely to be negligible. 

Sketchers have refused to publish their small surveys, saying they are currently doing a larger study.  However, shouldn’t the studies have been done before they started making insane claims about the effects of their shoes?  Does it not seem that, once again, we have a major business leading the way in the distribution of totally inaccurate information?  As a personal trainer, advanced fitness instructor and strength trainer, here is my opinion: will walking around in these shoes promote weight loss, strengthen the back, tighten the abs, firm the muscles in the legs and improve circulation?  Yes, it will.  However, so will walking around in any trainers, or even barefoot; the health and fitness benefits these shoes claim are benefits of walking – they are nothing to do with these silly designer shoes.  How can the public be expected to make sensible, well-informed decisions about their health when the people they look up to and respect in the field tell them nothing but nonsense?