A beautiful sunny Saturday on the King's Road, and gorgeous shiny shoes are out in force. First spot: these to-die-for s/s 2010 Vivienne Westwood/Melissa slingbacks.
How beautiful are these red patent Roger Vivier pumps? ''They're my mom's,'' confessed the wearer. ShoeClub feels a homage to Raiding Mom's Shoe Closet coming on.
Black patent and fuschia-pink platform wedges. Here comes the summer!
Sunday morning in east London, a trip to Petticoat Lane. Everything is cheap, cheerful, and most of all, colourful.
ShoeClub is not normally an advocate of ballet flats. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with them. I personally have as many ballet flats as the next woman (just checked – eleven pairs. That's about average, right?) It's just they are so ubiquitous, so predictable, so... boring (thank you Kate Moss.) However, an exception must be made when they are as pretty as these. The lady in the top picture (suedette, applique, sequins glinting in the sunshine) had bought them last week in Paris: the girl wearing the gorgeous satin ones above offered to take them off to give me a closer look.
This girl was bemused when I asked to shoot her gladiators. ''You can get them at Peacocks,'' she said. Maybe, but the fabulous pedicure is what really makes this look.
The world's most basic footwear – a flat sole and a couple of straps holding it on her foot – but in this case the straps were made of ribbon, lace, ric-rac, and metal discs, and the wearer had painted her nails in a variety of matching tones. Not the clearest of photos, you'll have to take my word for it: very, very cool.
Saturday morning in west London, spotted this lady having coffee at Cafe d'Or on Golborne Road, and rocking these ''incredibly comfortable'' gold leather boots from Emma Hope. Walking down Portobello Road and through the market I found lots more gold shoes, including the great pumps below.
Gold mid-heel sandals: a little bit Michelle Pfeiffer in 'Scarface': a lot Angela Rippon in 'Come Dancing' (in a good way.)
My favourite gold spot of the day: spike heeled boots in ruched leather, and just a tenner! But sadly not in my size.
Arguably the most glam-rock ankle-boots of the year: five-inch (12-cm) stiletto heels in "petrol" patent leather. Swoon.
Some time back I was putting together a page in the magazine I worked on, and asked the fashion department to call in a pair of ponyskin leopard-print high-heeled mules by Emporio Armani. They were gorgeous shoes, and I tripped around the photostudio happily, amidst general ooh-ing and ah-ing, till, sadly, it was time for them to go home to Giorgio. Fast forward a couple of months. Sadia and I are in Berlin for the weekend, spending Saturday morning shopping in KaDeWe. I have told Sadia that I am on a shoe-diet and under no circumstances am I to be allowed to purchase. If I look like I might be about to buy shoes, she is to wrestle me to the ground and call security. After some hours in the luxury diamante hairgrip department (fact), we stray into 'Damen Schuhe' (Ladies' Shoes.) It looks totally unappealing – until, suddenly, I spot them. My Armani mules. Nestling on a sale table, between last season's Marc Jacobs bootees and a Birkenstock. Trembling, I pull them out. I ask the sales assistant if they have any in my size. They have. I try them on. 'Oh mercy!' gasps Sadia, totally abandoning her appointed role in the proceedings, 'they are FABULOUS!' It was meant to be. Later we took them to the Bettina Rheims exhibition in C/O, where I shot them looking dishevelled on the stairs.
Spring is definitely here, that's enough with the black ankle-boots thank you. I'm thinking beach, I'm thinking sunshine... I'm thinking tan. But I'm still walking around west London on my Celtic pins. Hmm. Tan's a good word, though. Much more fun than 'beige' or 'neutral', and much more appropriate to the choppy patent cone-heels I rediscovered last weekend, or my Mom's old court shoes (which look great with ankle-skimming skinny jeans), or indeed, every other shoe on the British high street right now.
According to Wikipedia, 'Spectator shoes are notable for their two-tone color, similar to saddle shoes. However, where saddle shoes have a strip of color across the instep (and often another at the heel), spectator shoes have white as an accent color in various parts of the upper. While spectators are typically wingtips, some are cap toe shoes, and yet others are loafers. In the modern day they are predominantly seen in black and white, but other colors, particularly brown and white, are not unheard of.' So are these really spectator shoes at all? Or are they just amazingly lovely patent-leather-peep-toe-11cm-high-stilettos in this spring's essential nude paired with classic black, that work surprisingly well within the current utility trend and yet hail from a certain British high street store several seasons back? Your votes, please...
Of course, there are clogs and there are clogs, and then there's art. Which is how I'd describe these Robert Clergerie beauties. The wooden soles are 12 cm (five inches) high and narrow to a 2cm heel – that's less than an inch to balance on. Which also makes them lethal. The only person I've seen who can really clop about in these was my young friend Luke, aged 11. The rest of us can merely sigh and think respectfully of our ankles.
It's always satisfying when a trend coincides with an opportunity to shop your wardrobe, but with clothes, let's face it, this really doesn't happen all that often. You may still have those Pineapple leggings you bought in Covent Garden in 1989, but if you tried to wear them this winter when everything female in London was rocking the black-lycra-legs look, you just looked tragic (you know you did.) Shoes, however, age better. Witness these ponyskin platform clogs by David Aaron, purchased in Loehmann's on Seventh Avenue (I think) back in the last century. Eat your heart out, Phoebe Philo.
