The Vogue brogue brigade

From Yves Saint Laurent and Le Smoking, to Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone (on the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan) fashion always gets a kick out of a pretty girl dressed as an even prettier boy. 

Images thanks to Style.com

 The autumn/winter 2011 take on the trend saw classic men's brogues on the catwalk at Dolce & Gabbana, above, and embraced in the offices of Vogue (below).

Atillio Giusti Leombruni is a family-run shoe company (founded in 1958 in Montegranaro in Le Marche – the area that's home to 90% of the Italian shoe industry, footwear fact fans.) AGL makes beautiful flat shoes and boots for men and women, like the iridiscent metallic oxfords Anna M is wearing here.

"Being beautiful and sophisticated does not depend on a 12-cm heel," according to Vera, one of the three Giusti sisters. Elena B is another fan of AGL and their wonderful leopard-print ponyskin lace-ups.

From Le Marche to Le Marais: Elena P sports a touch of Paris beatnik cool in Pierre Hardy leather derbys (above).

 I have been searching without success for the perfect pair of desert boots for months now. These might just be it: Olga B's prisitine dove grey suedes, from Carlo Pazolini.

 I also love Natasha L's tan leather quarter-brogues. Lightly love-worn, totally timeless – and they're from Topshop. 

Image thanks to Style.com

The menswear influence was also evident at Celine (above).
Compare the silhouette and detailing on the catwalk with these shots of the Rolling Stones from the sixties (below). White polo-neck sweater, Brian Jones style? Check. High jacket lapels and neat little shirt collars like Bill and Charlie? Check. Natty ankle slit on the trousers á la Keith Richards in '66? Check.

Images thanks to mysixtieslove.blogspot.com

And we all love the Stones' Chelsea boots. 

Ekaterina M (above) in black patent that Mick would be jealous of. Another fashion hit from Atilio Giusti Leombruni.

Margarita (above) rocks these truly classic brown calf Chelsea boots from Massimo Dutti.

The side zips mean they are not truly Chelsea boots, while the wingtip detailing is what is technically known as blind brogue. Which makes then a bit of a mongrel, but I love them. Shoeblogger in the world's most comfortable black leather ankle boots, from Nero Giardini.

Chasing the unicorn

Shoe fans who read our post last month on Moscow's Fashion Night Out may recall the Shoeblogger highlight of the night (in every sense): the incredible sky-high, heel-free, skin-tight black boots below.

You may also recall that I was too overwhelmed to actually gather any useful information – such as, for example, what label they were. McQueen? Berardi? Something bespoke from Berlin, Tokyo or Hollywood Boulevard? Well, time to put the record straight. Here are those Black Unicorn shoes in detail (below), and here is 18-year-old Andrey Simakov – who made them.

We met up in daylight a couple of weeks ago and I asked Andrey how a teenager from Ryazan comes to be creating the kind of footwear more often seen on YouTube or Style.com. "I first thought of making shoes when I saw the Alexander McQueen show Plato's Atlantis," he told me. The S/S 2010 collection featured shoes, including the Armadillo, instantly adopted by Lady Gaga but equally coveted elsewhere. "There were so many I wanted," says Andrey, " but I had no opportunity or money to buy them – so I decided to do it myself!"

It was an area he admits was "totally unfamiliar" to him. But, with an impressively thorough and fearless attitude, Andrey started reading everything he could find about the craft of cobblery. He attended workshops and collected as much information as he could lay his hands on about McQueen's Armadillo shoes. It took him three months to make his first pair. He was 16 years old.

The Black Unicorns have a 9cm (3.5-inch) platform and the heel – well, if it existed it would be an eye-watering 21cm (8 inches.) As you can see from the pictures, Andrey wears them as nonchalantly as if they were Converse. Can he walk in them? Do you really need to ask? Video evidence below: 

Since 2009 Andrey has made six pairs of shoes and is working on the seventh. He showed me another of his creations, the Dark Jesus platform (below).

Dark Jesus does have a heel – 22cm (8.5 inches) of heel, to be precise – and a 12cm (nearly 5 inches) platform sole. The shoe's other feature is the shiny black rubber dripping over the muzzle (there's no other word for it) and down the heel. 

Despite being frighteningly young, and self-taught, (or perhaps because of this), Andrey has a very specific aesthetic approach to shoe design. The classic McQueens combine baroque shapes with extravagant surface ornamentation, but Andrey is clearly most interested in form. The impact lies entirely in the shape of the shoe, the height of the platform, and the way it wraps around the foot. Whereas a bejeweled pair of Armadillos is definitely womenswear, Andrey Simakov's platforms could be worn by anyone (anyone with a head for heights, that is).

Unsurprisingly, Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness are among Andrey's inspirations, along with James Dean, Kate Moss and Patti Smith. He admires "their manners, behaviour – they are all very individual." Currently at university (not studying fashion, although he does work part-time in the business), Andrey says he would like eventually to have his own atelier and sell his shoes. He has an exhibition coming up in Moscow and his home town of Ryazan. Meantime you can follow his progress on his blog: simakovshoes.blogspot.com. Catch him now – if you can.

We're having a heatwave

The driver of the Piccadilly Line service from Heathrow had an announcement. "The temperature in London today is 27 degrees," he told us. "That's hotter than the Bahamas!" My fellow Tube passengers gave a little cheer – what nicer start to an October weekend than a surprise heatwave? Gleefully throwing off scarf and gloves, your Shoeblogger grabbed a favourite pair of J&M Davidson beaded flops and hotfooted it to Cheveux 2000 on the Uxbridge Road (top spot in London for bonding, braiding and acrylic nails), for an emergency mani-pedi (Orly Blue Suede, below) to kick off the weekend.

Autumn in London is usually the Season of the Black Opaque Tight. On this occasion, however, it was bare legs a-go-go. A mini trend on Portobello Road on Friday afternoon was to wear your clompiest boots with something cute and girlish. For instance, these scuffed-and-studded Doc Martens (below) with frilled anklets.

Ditto the hefty black brothel creepers below, teamed with dinky beribboned ankle socks.

I liked this couple with the his 'n' hers desert boots, hers prettified with a big red bow.

Strolling up Portobello Road to Notting Hill it's always fun to check out the legendary Notting Hill Exchange shops. These are a chain of second-hand stores selling everything from music (vinyl and CDs) to fashion and furniture. Retro Woman, one of the branches on Pembridge Road, had a couple of pairs of great gold and pink Prada and MiuMiu pumps in the window (below).

Over on Sloane Street the Prada boutique had this display of burgundy loveliness (below) – much more low-key than the banana-heels that have been in the headlines this season, but very wearable and want-able.

On Bond Street there was one sighting of the seasonal Black Opaques phenomenon, but teamed with these lovely summery Tory Burch gold ballerinas (below).

 Ballet flats and understated but expensive chic were, as one might expect in Mayfair, the order of the day, with lots of shine and a bit of snakeskin thrown in.

Just off Bond Street is Maddox Street, home to the Charlotte Olympia boutique – "To Die For", as their window so accurately proclaims (below).

Directly opposite, at 45 Maddox Street, is The Box (below), another level of shoe heaven. 

The Box was opened in March this year by a couple of Russian sisters, Yulia and Elena Pashevkina (more evidence of the burgeoning Russian shoe scene). The sisters studied at Central Saint Martins and decorated the boutique themselves in a style Vogue UK describes as "opulent neon-Baroque". They stock labels like Beatrix Ong, Bionda Castana, and Chrissie Morris. I fell for a pair of Iris van Herpen for United Nude ankle boots (below) though at £750 you can see why they are being modelled here by Kim Kardashian rather than your Shoeblogger.

(Image thanks to awomanandhershoes.com)

In fact the shoes I did invest in this weekend are, in their own small way, almost as bling as the above. They are a pair of gold stiletto-heeled pumps (below) – a wee bit Prada, a wee bit Kardashian – from vintage store Marshmallow Mountain in Carnaby Street (note the matching plastic bag they came in). And they set me back the princely sum of a tenner. That's real London style.