Alexander McQueen Shoes

Alexander McQueen Studded Platform Sandals, $2295 via Nordstrom

Even as man brands decide to try out lower-heeled and platformless shoes in the wake of season after season of vertiginous ankle-breakers, Alexander McQueen stands strong in its love for extreme shoes. Normally this would be a thing about which I’d gripe, but for a company as committed to the extreme and perilous as McQueen, on an aesthetic level, a crazy shoe makes a lot of sense.

The Alexander McQueen Studded Platform Sandal is just the latest in a long line of similar designs, but it’s worth revisiting for the heel alone. Look at that thing.

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Alexander McQueen Ostrich Platform Pumps, $1925 via Net-a-Porter

One fantastic thing about Alexander McQueen that Sarah Burton has managed to continue is that he never chased trends. If something wasn’t fashionable and he still wanted to do it, he went right ahead and did it. What’s more, McQueen often used his creative powers to skewer crass popular fads, most notably with his “bumster” pants, an answer to the “hipsters” that were popular at the time.

The Alexander McQueen Ostrich Platform Pumps likely aren’t meant as fashion commentary, but they do go ahead the popular grain for shoe structures. While designers left and right are scrambling to abandon stilettos with significant platforms in favor of more ladylike pump shapes, McQueen goes right on doing its own thing. This time, the results are oddly lovely.

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Images via Vogue.com

Reviewing a set of Alexander McQueen runway shoes is kind of beside the point, isn’t it? Sarah Burton hasn’t missed a single beat since McQueen’s death, and his tradition of sculptural, vertiginous shoes lives on for Alexander McQueen Spring 2012. Like Donatella Versace, Karl Lagerfeld and Riccardo Tisci, Burton was also feeling inspired by the sea and the beauty of nature, and her take was as intricate and impressive as ever.

What’s interesting about McQueen’s runway shoes, above and beyond those of other major brands, is that they can’t be mixed and matched with other outfits in the collection. They’re all painstakingly tied to the clothes for which they were made, which is part of what makes a McQueen show so mesmerizing. Retail renditions of a few of these shoes will surely pop up in the next few months, and I can’t wait to see them. Hell, I can hardly stop looking at these photos.

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Alexander McQueen Metal Wedge Sandals, $4445 via Nordstrom

Continuing my screed from yesterday about brands and retailers taking chances, I can’t believe that the Alexander McQueen Metal Wedge Sandals actually made it to the public. They’ve been slightly altered from the runway version (most notably, someone nixed the spike that was coming out of the back of the wedge) and they cost an arm and a leg, but they’re here! They’re really here! Someone channel Daphne Guinness (both her penchant for heelless shoes and her bank account) and buy a pair!

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Alexander McQueen Finned-Wedge Suede Booties, $1050 va Neiman Marcus.

Can someone hand me a hanky? I’ve just drooled on myself, and I’m not sure whether it’s the antihistamines I took an hour ago to try and make my eyes stop itching or the sight of the utterly gorgeous Alexander McQueen Finned-Wedge Booties that drove my to lazy, half-conscious salivation. It might be a combination of the both, but I’m pretty sure that these shoes are gorgeous enough to elicit that sort of Pavlovian reaction on their own.

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Alexander McQueen Embossed Leather Ankle Boots, $1468 via Matches

Sometimes I think that I could fill an entire daily blog just with posts about Alexander McQueen. When I heard that Kate Middleton would likely be wearing McQueen the afternoon before last week’s royal wedding, I ditched my decision to skip the nuptials and instead stayed up all night to see the dress. McQueen’s death is the only “celebrity” passing that has ever brought me to tears, and if it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t love fashion enough to make a career out of it. If you’ve been visiting these parts for a while, you already know all of this, so I apologize for repeating myself. But when runway masterpieces like the Alexander McQueen Embossed Leather Ankle Boots make it to retail, it only makes me appreciate the man and the company that he left behind all the more.

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Where do I even start when it comes to Alexander McQueen Fall 2011? Even after its namesake’s death a year ago, the brand has continued to march to its own beat under the masterful watch of Sarah Burton, McQueen’s right-hand woman and the company’s creative director since his passing. She’s kept up McQueen’s tendency to eschew trends in favor of further exploring the brand’s dark, detailed aesthetic, and that’s exactly what this collection does.

While McQueen himself tended toward violence and conflict with his clothes, perhaps reflecting the turmoil in his own life, Burton’s design have a subtle serenity to them that is nothing less than excellent. Her shoes still have the signature McQueen sexuality, though, and thigh-high laced python boots with vertiginous stiletto heels aren’t any less fierce because of their lavender shade. The heelless wedges are also a sight to behold, not to mention a feat of physics and careful design. In a sea of largely practical, wearable clothes in Paris, Burton’s collection for McQueen was a more-than-welcome counterpoint in both its grandiose aesthetic and exquisite finishing.

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Depending on how long you’ve been following our plucky little network of sites, you may or may not know the serious and unending love I have for Alexander McQueen, both the man and the brand. As we near the one-year anniversary of his tragic passing, I’ve been thinking more and more about the impact that McQueen has had on fashion at large and my own personal style in particular, as well as where the brand is headed under new creative director Sarah Burton. And then tonight I stumbled upon the fact that Neiman Marcus just added my favorite runway shoes of Spring 2011, the Alexander McQueen Floral Wedge T-Strap Sandals, to its website, and I think we’re all going to be okay after all.

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I was going to start this post by saying that I’m clearly in an Alexander McQueen mood lately, but let’s face it – my life is an Alexander McQueen mood. As such, let’s talk about the Alexander McQueen Floral-Engraved Leather Boots, because if a pair of shoes has deserved a conversation lately, it’s this one.

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Every season, pre-orders seem to sneak up on us earlier and earlier. Less than a week ago, Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2011 shoes made their catwalk debut in Paris, and now at least one representative of the collection’s non-runway footwear has made its way to online retail.

The Alexander McQueen Open Toe Ankle Boot is a far more complicated and interesting shoe than its name would indicate. In the grand tradition of McQueen, the design takes something expected and pulls it in a whole new direction – I don’t know if these shoes should really be called sandals or booties, but I’m not sure that either word would do them justice.

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