Designer Shoes

Archive for January, 2010

Without being grossly stereotypical, there’s possibly only one thing women are as known to love as much as shoes…chocolate! How strange then, that nobody has even come up with the concept of combing the two…oh wait…

Would you believe it if I told you somebody (a cake maker, in fact) has actually launched a range of chocolate designer shoes? No? I’m not surprised, but it doesn’t stop the story being true; Frances Cooley found a chocolate shoe mould in Belgium and BAM, that’s all the inspiration she needed to create her own brand of chocolate shoes. Crazy? Apparently not, as the shoes have been “selling like hot cakes” according to Frances – and she’d know, what with having quit her job as a graphic designer to become a cake-maker!

The process involved in the shoe-making sounds quite simple, but is almost certainly harder than you’d expect. She starts by piping design into the shoe-mould and then fills it with tempered Belgian chocolate. Once cooled, she pours out the excess and leaves it to set, before hand-decorating each one. When they are complete, she sells them in over 25 delicatessens and boutiques (including Liberty luxury department store) for £8.50 for a small pair or £21 for a single large shoe.

I love it!

When it comes to shoes (as everything does), I must admit I have something of a passion for boots. In fact, I never quite feel comfortable unless I’m wearing boots… Be it out in the street, in a bar or even lounging around at home – I have boots for every conceivable situation and I love them all. What I don’t love, however, is attempting to put my boots on whilst wearing trousers – especially jeans. You must know what I mean; you pull you trouser-leg taut, tug on the first few inches of boots and, immediately, your jeans start bunching up… The futher you pull the boot on, the more the jeans bunch and so the cycle continues until you’re left looking like an extra from Pirates of Penzance!

This cannot be allowed to continue! The women of the world cannot be forced to suffer this trial every time they want to wear their favourite boots. HENCE, we are proud to bring these to your attention – jean straps!

When first I heard of the Jean Straps phenomena, I thought it was a new designer (French accent, Jean Strapes), but then I realised it was something far, far better. Stirrups, for lack of a better word, which you simply clip around your calf, holding you jeans taut and tight beneath your boots. In short – no more bunching! What’s more, they’re under a tenner to buy, yet will save you hours of faffing and years you’d otherwise lose to stress! Totally simple, totally effective and totally discrete. Perfect.

I support the jean straps movement 100%. Find them here, at Jean Straps.

Here at the Designer Shoes Blog, we aim to bring you handy advice and news. After our post about the impact of the recession on the shoe industry, it seems clear more and more of you are choosing to mend or polish-up your old shoes, rather than buying brand new ones. So today we thought I’d help out by providing you dear readers with some advice on e the effectively covering up the scruffs on your leather shoes – so they look great and last longer!

Ever wondered why army boots look so good after months of stomping around? It’s because getting scuffs out of leather shoes is simple; all you need is a damp sponge, a shoe brush and some form of shoe polish. Although wax is the best option for covering scruffs, creams comes in far more colours – so they might be more appropriate. To start with, remove your laces (if you have any) and, using the damp sponge, clean your shoes to remove all the surface dirt. Once they are sparkling clean, apply the polish (wax or cream) and rub it into the leather using small, circular motions. Once you’ve covered all the leather, remove any blobs of excess polish and finally buff the leather with the shoe brush. Good as new!

Published today, official research into the recession has revealed that shoes were one of the biggest things to be cut from family spending during the 2008 period of economic decline. According to the Office for National Statistics, spending on shoes and clothes in 2008 was the lowest since 2001, despite the fact that average household spending actually rose by £12 per week from 2007.

Although it could well be that the recession is causing people to cut back on their spending on ‘luxury’ items like designer shoes, it has also been suggested that the recession has been accompanied by huge discount at clothes and shoes shops, as well as massive price reductions in products like designer shoes. This implies that it is not necessarily the case that people are buying less shoes – but possibly that it’s costing people less to buy them. If the area I’m living in is a reliable source of evidence, I’m going to assume the latter is true! I, for one, haven’t cut down on my shoe-buying at all – it’s the last thing I’d give up! As for sales, I can’t remember the last time I haven’t been able to find one to suit my needs.

In case you’re interested; people in Wales spent the least on shoes in 2008, followed by Scotland, then England and finally Northern Ireland, who spent the most.

Although there are many strange and wonderful shoes out there, some really challenge the notion of what it is to be a shoe. My recent posts about crazy designer shoes have, as many crazy things will do, made me challenge my very concept of shoes – here are my musings.

Most definitions of the word ‘shoe’ involve the words “covering” or “protecting”; “a protective covering for the foot, originally designed for comfort and durability, but more recently also for decoration” was along the lines of my own definition. However, many hyper-fashionable trends and individual pairs of shoes are now challenging that very definition; many shoes are now uncomfortable, don’t cover the foot at all and are actually more dangerous than not wearing any shoes at all! The question is, are these still ‘shoes’? If so, then our previous definition must be wrong and need altering – but to what? If these new objects are not shoes, then what are they?

Although many people would consider the first pair of shoes in Return of the Crazy Designer Shoes to be ridiculous, I think most would agree that they are, nevertheless, shoes of some kind. Yet all they are is a kind of metal cage around the foot, so this raises interesting questions; just how little material can still constitute a shoe? Which parts of an object must remain intact in order for the object to still be a shoe? Also, at what point does an object become a sock?

To illustrate my point and get you thinking, I ask you to consider this picture. Is this object a shoe? If so, what is it about the object that makes it a shoe? If not, what is it failing to do that a shoe would do and what changes would have to be made in order for it to be a shoe?

When is a shoe not a shoe?

Happy New Year! After the popularity of the last post about crazy designer shoes, we’ve decided to bring you a second instalment – possibly even weirder than the first one! Hold onto your plimsolls, this is gonna get strange…

To start things off, a pair of shoes from probably the laziest designer in the world. These are what most people refer to…as feet. They look very much as if the designer simply couldn’t be bothered to finish making them – or even start for that matter! Perhaps I’m being unfair; maybe they were forgotten about until 25 minutes before show time, or the designer ran out of money and couldn’t afford the materials… Whatever the reason for their being, these are not good shoes.

In stark contrast to the first shoes, these are probably the most over-planned shoes in existence. In case you can’t see for yourself, they have a CD player built into the sole of the shoe… I don’t actually know whether it works or not, but I fear it may just be a fashion statement similar to wearing headphones attached to nothing around your neck. I’m not saying these are bad shoes, but they are pretty strange.

Finally, check out these pinnacles of bizarre – shoes that I refer to in my mind as “The Raptors”! With a heel that would break the ankle of the most bendy of ballerinas, these shoes are also equipped with talon-like claws or spikes that sit in the bridge of the foot, presumably to ensure one does not alter one’s frankly ridiculous pose.

Whatever next?! (This is deceptive because I already know what’s next and it’s mental).