Generally, I follow the advice of of the legendary Diane Vreeland: you need a little bit of bad taste every now and then. It’s what makes fashion fun and it’s what makes personal style personal – if everyone just wore things that society at large agreed were appropriate or acceptable, everyone would look exactly the same. In modern dressing, it’s often the note of bad taste that makes the outfit. Read More…

We spoke a bit yesterday about how fashion is trying to make knee-high boots happen (presumably because they think they’ve sold us all the booties that we’re willing to buy for now), and it appears as though the Givenchy Fold-Over Knee Boots are the style after which everyone is clamoring for fall. My feelings are…mixed. Join me after the jump and we’ll discuss it. Read More…

Anyone who’s ever seen an Oscar de la Renta show or been to one of his boutiques knows that the man is the uncontested king of embellishment. De la Renta Madison Avenue flagship store consistently ranks as the most expensive place to shop in the country, and his designs earn such high price tags because of the incredible amount of detail and embellishment that goes into nearly every piece. Read More…

On Sunday, I had the privilege of accompanying a friend on a celebratory shopping trip and brunch at Barneys. JM (the friend in question) had received a rather big promotion at work a few days prior, and she wanted to commemorate the occasion with her first pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes. Her new title includes the words “vice president,” so a pair of shoes certainly seemed to be in order, and I was excited to go along on the shoe shopping mission, along with our friend Casey. Read More…

That’s the only explanation I can think of when looking at some of Giuseppe Zanotti’s designs lately. Zanotti must be making a very public, very widespread bid to become the personal shoe atelier of Lady Gaga, because half his line looks like it was made with only her (and perhaps Daphne Guinness) in mind. They’re certainly the first people who came to mind when I laid eyes on the Giuseppe Zanotti Extreme Platform Wedges Booties. Read More…

If there’s a designer out there right now who’s really, truly mining a specific look, it’s Nina Ricci. Since his arrival at the French brand in 2009, Peter Copping has gone about cementing the Nina Ricci aesthetic as one of old-world Parisian refinement and femininity. The house’s work is full of blush and ivory and crimson, with the details done up in grosgrain trim and jet beading. Read More…

One wonders how long we have to continue to tolerate things like the UGG Short Sheepskin Cuff Boots. They first became questionably trendy back in the mid-2000s, during the days of Juicy track suits and Paris Hilton’s rise to fame. It’s now 2012, and for some reason, brands continue to design these boots and retailers continue to offer them for sale in their stores, which can only mean one thing: people are buying them. Read More…

We can trace this trend back to September 2011, when Louis Vuitton showed its Spring 2012 collection, full of pumps and mules with pointed, silver-capped toes. Stuart Weitzman followed with a line of pastel leather pumps with similar capped toes, and now, virtually every brand has some sort of toe situation going on for Fall 2012. Like the inspiration, most of the options go with a metallic cap in silver or gold, but some brands have found a way to make the look their own by experimenting with glitter, studs and tonal texture. Read More…