two kitties

Rollasole Shoes

Rollasoles are roll-upp-able ballet flats for sale in vending machines installed in a select group of nightclubs in England. For those nights when you're too drunk to find your shoes, I guess.

Prada, Montana.

Today, two worlds collided.

 

Beyonce's Shoe Choice: 2009 BET Awards.

These shoes are a kind of tribute to Stevie Wonder's hair, doncha think?

Sigerson Morrison Huarache Boots

Fall 2009 is all about the boot. Whether it is combat, wedge, or stiletto, it has to be hiiiiiiiiigh.

Jessica Simpson Shoes

I just bought these Jessica Simpson shoes. I never would have picked these out - my wardrobe consultant at Trunk Club did - but I love them with jeans. I'm their first woman client and I'm keeping them busy. Not much shopping here in Montana.

Ugly Marc Jacobs Sandals

This blog is a little bit of everything - a little art, a little craft, a little fashion. I've been thinking about a SHOE category - but it wasn't until I saw these that I realized how truly needed the SHOE category might be. The  Marc Jacobs' sandals (above) are a NO. Do not wear these.  I cannot imagine an outfit - unless it was an outfit designed by Stevie Nicks - that would make this shoe an appropriate or attractive choice. It's like Grapes of Wrath on crack. Do NOT buy the Forever 21 knock offs:

Your calves and ankles will look like ham hocks all trussed up and ready for Sunday dinner. Are we clear?

Mummified Barbies of Yves Saint Laurent and E. V. Day

Last month, I went to see the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at San Francisco's De Young Museum. Like these "tribute" shoes, the YSL exhibit seemed hastily organized. The clothing on display was pulled from the Fondation Pierre Berge, an organization dedicated to the collection and preservation of exceptional haute couture. I might have taken another year to negotiate with the ladies; mixing the Fondation's holdings with borrowed pieces from YSL's clientele. 

I did love this wedding dress, knit by Yves Saint Laurent dressmakers in 1965. Here we have a white wool mummy on the cusp of the sexual revolution. Consider the simple, phallic shape of the thing. The way it covers every part of her body and keeps the alluring - hair, breasts, waist, legs - from view though her hands and mouth are exposed.  The dress is probably very, very hot and heavy to wear. She is wrapped and tied with ribbons, forcing her groom to have patience in his steady, slow progress to unwrap her cocoon.

The dress is knit in a variation of the Aran style fisherman's sweater. The stitches knit into the dress have significance to me. In Aran patterns, the honeycomb is a symbol of the hard-working bee. In the Hebrew Bible, honey is a spiritual food. In the case of the the knitted wedding dress, it is also, most certainly, a reference to the wearer's sexuality. She is a flower, awaiting pollination.

The basket weave stitch is said to represent the fisherman's basket, and hopes for a plentiful catch. Aran sweaters are traditionally made of untreated wool which retains natural lanolin. The lanolin gives the sweater a degree of water resistance. This wedding dress is a form of protection.

Not on the museum label - just my own observations about the dress.  And maybe that's what was missing from the DeYoung show for me - some kind of acknowledgment of the depth and complexity behind the couture of Yves Saint Laurent. These are not just pretty clothes. 

A series of Mummified Barbies by the artist E. V. Day recalls the power of the bee and the potent sexuality of this troubled icon of femininity. Day wraps Barbie in twine and dips her in hot beeswax, leaving only the eyes and, occasionally, the feet, as a conduit for experience. 

What did your wedding dress look like?

NO.

And I mean just say NO. Uuuuuuuuuuggggggly. There is no imaginably good reason for you to wear an amphibious high heel.