Bluebird

A footwear flash from the past

It was in the mid 70s when I saw these wooden Dutch shoes. My older siblings had taken me to the Folk Fair in downtown Milwaukee, a kind of ethnic bazaar that continues today. Of course I had to have them. They came unfinished, so my brother Tom added the colorful designs. The heydayof maxi dresses, I remember wearing them to a cousin's wedding with a long cream dress. I wore them to school too, loving the sound they made when jumping rope on the cracked asphalt playground at St. John's. Preferring to look different from everyone else even back then, I don't believe I ever saw another kid wearing such footwear. Now my girls traipse around in them and fill them with little toys. Maybe when they're older, they'll want to wear them out in public too. If so, I'll happily let them.

Ou est Santa Cobbler?

Yes, I love these Theory boots, but I wonder why I need walk on such ungainliness. 5" heels may be one thing, child's dress-up play even--but it's the front sole platform that takes these to an incautiously unfriendly level.

STIL BOOT

Fabric: AYLA

Style #: B08TA067

$425.00

STIL BOOT

• 4¾ inch heel
• 1¾ platform
• made in Italy

STIL BOOT

Nike, Nike, Nike

 

The New ‘It’ Sneaker Is, for Once, Actually New

Men's Fashion

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By JACOB BROWN

| April 6, 2011, 4:00 pm

A sneaker’s style quotient is usually a function of its retro charm, and an inverse of its underlying technology. Hip dressers love vintage Nike Dunks, Adidas Superstars and Converse Chucks. A cutting-edge Nike Shox, with its bulging springlike heel? Not so much. So it’s surprising that the “it” shoe suddenly gracing the feet of the fashion set is the Nike Free, a high-performance running shoe. As Nike’s answer to the barefoot-running movement, the Free aims to biomechanically mimic an unencumbered stride. The resulting design is stripped down, innovation mostly restricted to the sole’s highly flexible grip and the upper’s foot-anchoring webbing. Unlike “barefoot” models, Nike hits an aesthetic sweet spot. According to Free’s inventor, Tobie Hatfield, getting people to wear it off the track — let alone to a chic restaurant — requires “a balance of simple and high-tech. You don’t want the thing to look like a foot.”

When a shoe is also a house...

 

I would so wear these...

On the Rise

Women's Fashion

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By ALIX BROWNE

| March 29, 2011, 11:30 am

Jens Mortensen

If Joachim de Callatay’s shoes have the height of a small building and the heft of a piece of furniture, perhaps it’s because the 31-year-old Belgian studied industrial design rather than fashion. His first collection, which is available at Jeffrey in New York, includes a wedge (above) that was inspired by the construction of a traditional Japanese house.

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/on-the-rise/