Yves Saint Laurent Shoes

Looking at a stock photo of the Yves Saint Laurent Palais Mohawk Pumps can be a bit daunting. As the name would indicate, the shoes feature a shock of black goat hair down the back of the heel that elevates them far above your average suede pump, but it also makes them a little bit more difficult to work into a wardrobe – you can’t really pair them with conservatively cut trousers, after all.

What you should do, just as Jak & Jil and Style.com photoblogger Tommy Ton shows us, is wear these shoes with the best pair of matte, opaque black tights you can find. Once you’ve done that, walk sideways everywhere you go so that you don’t waste what may be the best profile in footwear today.

Close-up shoe shot and purchasing information, after the jump.

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Ever since I saw the Yves Saint Laurent Palais Platforms, I’ve been in love. The bold blue suede and curvy heels and platform turn a regular pumps into something special, but unfortunately, they do it to the tune of over $700. Luckily for us, the Dolce Vita Paige Platform Pumps uses a similar shape in a slightly more traditional color and cuts the price by over two thirds.

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Sigh.

I like avant garde design as much as anyone, but when I’m in the mood for a truly beautiful pair of shoes, I always know right where to go: Yves Saint Laurent.

The brand has a Parisian simplicity to it that many designers chase and few ever attain, and the people at YSL rarely, if ever, make a pair of shoes or handbag that I don’t like. Recently, it seems like every awesome pair of shoes that I see on a celeb can be traced back to the storied French fashion house, and I love both of these pairs so much that I couldn’t decide which one to write about today. Solution: both of them!

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“Boots with the fur” has been around for so long that the trend earned its own name-check in the chorus of a terrible (ok, fine, I liked it) rap song, but it seems to me that the shoes pictured above aren’t exactly what Flo Rida had in mind when he wrote his ode to dance-floor dressing. After all, goat hair trim is a far cry from your average Ugg boot.

My shoe crush Nicholas Kirkwood made a pair of very bold goat hair boots as part of his brilliant Fall/Winter 2009 collection, and it seems as though more than a few other designers have picked up the material for 2010. Fur is a huge trend for winter, so it only makes sense that a tougher, more utilitarian type of fur should show up on footwear.

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In 2005, the It Bag craze took over the accessory world. In fact, when we started PurseBlog the height of the It Bag was nearing its peak. At the time I was not involved with shoes as much, my bag addiction took front seat. But if I had to place a shoe into the “it shoe” category, the Yves Saint Laurent Tribute Platform Sandals would be there front and center.

I mean, look at these shoes! How can you not fall instantly in love with the design?

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