Thursday 28 February 2013

Goodbye summer




Dress - Alice McCall, Shoes - Tony Bianco
Photographer - Lucy Alcorn

I'm literally moving out of my house as I write this, so I'll make this brief:
  • This is the only time you'll ever see me in a low cut anything. Enjoy it, ladies.
  • This dress is totally amazing, Alice McCall is a treasure.
  • I can't walk in these shoes, but holy butts are they pretty. I wore them to a wedding in the middle of Washington State in a blizzard, it was a bad choice.
x Maddy


Wednesday 27 February 2013

Jeffrey Campbell is a drunk - the countdown edition

There is something I have never understood about Jeffrey Campbell shoes - how are they often so lovely, and so wearable, and just as often completely awful mangled shoebeasts covered in studs?

"Please kill me"

My only conclusion is that everyone who works there steadily drinks though the day. In the morning when everyone is sober, your run of the mill, pretty average but not awful, shoes are designed.

At about lunchtime, everyone is at that inspired stage of being drunk - its the point at which you're usually your wittiest, you're still a good dancer, and your brain is just nice and loosey-goosey and the ideas are flowing freely. Interesting and well designed shoes overfloweth, innovative design abounds.

By the afternoon is when all hell breaks loose. Trends are mixed with wild abandon, different materials and concepts are chewed up and vomited out into a weird rainbow mess that apparently consumers are meant to put on their feet.

So here are my top ten best and top ten worst Jeffrey Campbell shoes.





BEST

'Medina'
Well balanced, good use of clear plastic, not even stupidly high.

'Zuba'
Sporty, coloured but not too colourful, good solid heel.



'Dorado'
Real cute, very Britpack. Great toe shape, awesome curved heel. Want this as my winter boot this season!
'Mikhail'
Classic little oxford shoe in a cute summer colour. 




'Soiree'

Simple two strap shape, well balanced with an on-trend ombre perspex heel.





'Seem'
Cute Erdem-esque print, solid chunky well balanced shape.
'Dulles'

Man style done really well. Great toe detail, reminds me of Givenchy "gills".





'I Confess'

I can see how someone might hate this one, but I think its a statement shoe done quite well. Curved heel and the check pattern are great - the red straps are absolutely toeing the line of "too many trends" but since it stops short, these shoes are a winner in my book.



'Miss You'
Two things that I think are great - chunky schoolgirl soles, and cutout oxford shoes. Excellent combo. See? You only need TWO TRENDS. You don't have to drive a truckload of runway looks up to the shoe and dump them all over it.

'Arizona'
I know little boots like this have been done to death but I really like this pattern and colour.







WORST


'Vicious'
I want to melt this shoe down into a rainbow plastic studded goo and feed it to a cat I don't like that scratched me one time.



'Scotty'
This shoe was born when a bad motel couch got sent to hell for being too ugly and dipped itself into a lake of gold hellfire.




'Sporty'
This is actually a great shoe for sports like sinking, running from angry villagers with burning torches, and candy cane polo.







'Teramo'
"Hey, you got peanut butter on my comic book!"

"You got comic book on my peanut butter!"

MMM DELICIOUS!






'What'
...exactly.

GO BACK TO THE SWAMP FROM WHENCE YOU CAME




'Xanadu'
 And to think 3 baby leopards and a baby robot died to make this monstrosity.


'Lita'
 Cons - requires regular grooming. Pros - an excellent family pet





'Zup'
 This shoe reminds me of terrible MySpace profiles of terrible scene girls - all pink and black and layed out really badly and noisy and awful.


                         
'Tick'
Looking at this is giving me limes disease.




'Aksana'

Just look at the blue bit - it looks like a little blue man is trying to escape from the rest of the shoe. I don't blame him.

x Maddy



Wednesday 20 February 2013

Monochrome






 





 Shirt - Cue, Skirt - Konstantina Mittas, Shoes - Wittner, Necklace - Nervous System
Photographer - Lucy Alcorn


First ever outfit post! How inaugurous!

When you have flaming red hair, sometimes you just throw your hands up and wear black and white for a solid week. Buying these amazing Wittner shoes just tipped me right over the edge - and my god are they comfortable! They have cylindrical heels - its like walking on wheat silos. So amazing.

Also having an obsession with Etsy store Nervous System - incredible laser cut jewellery all inspired by nature. Not in a cutesy flowers and leaves and dolphins leaping around kind of way, more in a scientific way. Some are inspired by intricate corals and others by the microscopic goings on of plants.

Outfit posts will hopefully be weekly, so you'll have to put up with our weird faces all up in your faces in about a weeks time. Until then, enjoy!


x Maddy

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Pre-Fall 2013

First post ever! Smells like new car.

So as the first cab off the rank, here are the winners of Pre-Fall 2013:



3.1 Phillip Lim


Onya Phil. You have made me almost start to think about considering wearing over the knee boots. Yet another tick to sheer sleeves - I've made a mental note to start scouring Etsy for sheer bombers and tops again. I absolutely love the biker-inspired phoenix motif, but I can't put my finger on why exactly. I feel like I had a surf store backpack with something like this on it when I was about 12, so maybe its nostalgia. Either way, this range is tops - bet you $10 Christine Centenera wears the bulk of it.




Carven



Guillaume Henry you diabolical...what's that? You want all of my money? Nicole Phelps of Style.com called this collection "irreverent", but I'm feeling pretty reverential toward it. Not only has it restored my love of knee high socks by taking all the schoolgirl out of it, but it has also locked in my need for many many parkas this season - so perfect for pissweak Australian "winters" and easy to find as vintage! The coat on the far right reminds me of the foam inside high jump mats. Right on.



Céline


God this looks comfortable. All flats and comfy trousers. I just want to wear this around Newtown, duck up to the chemist. Not pictured - huge oversized Puss-In-Boots belt buckles. Really like this undone style of tuxedo dressing, Philo does casual so well.



Alexander McQueen


This is one of the most simple ranges I've seen from Sarah Burton, and I think it makes it so strong. I would actually genuinely wear this and not feel like I was in Mardi Gras or like I was Lady Gaga. Inspired by puritans, pilgrims, nuns and popes, this collection probably better deserves the term "irreverent". Really hope to see a celebrity with a killer caboose wear the dress on the left on the red carpet. Maybe Helen Mirren.


x Maddy