Gucci snow boots

I spent Sunday morning sliding from one side of Hampstead Heath to the other. My proper treaded snow boots are in New York, and the leather riding boots I have been wearing are size 6 death traps.

Happily Wardrobe Slave was wearing her sensible snow boots.



Sturdy, waterproof, and with proper grippy soles, her boots let her stride happily along, to the accompaniment of my wails as I clung onto her elbow with a grip of iron, trying not to go arse over tit as a deliriously over-excited Zelda (black lab) cannoned into the backs of my legs.

Then, as yet again I began to describe an arching fall, my jaw dropped as I saw the label on the side of her boots. Who'd have thought such sensible footwear came from the home of the tart's trotter?



However Wardrobe Slave would like it known that her dedication to style does not stretch to needing to wear Gucci in the snow. These lovely boots cost her a mere £50 in the Gucci sample sale.

Selve bespoke shoes, boots and golf shoes

Well, look what arrived in the mail just before Christmas. My very own pair of made to measure brogues.



Yup, that's made to measure as in made to fit my wonky feet exactly by Selve, a shoemaker who customise shoes to the customer's specifications, not just in size, but in everything from colour to heel height.



I chose brogues as they are timeless and will last me for years, I hope. I thought a very dark brown would be more useful than black as I am trying hard not to wear black clothes all the time, and especially not outside of work.

And aren't they just heavenly?



Look at those bee-yootiful soles...works of art, they are.



I was thrilled when Selve offered to make shoes to fit me as my feet are different sizes and, with my abnormally narrow heels skinny calves & high insteps, I find it almost impossible to buy shoes that fit correctly.

When I last had boots made to fit, the whole process of measuring me up was more complicated but it's been considerably progressed by technology, and only takes an hour or so. After the initial appointment, your specs are kept on file so subsequent orders can be taken by phone or e mail.

So, I stripped off my tights and my feet were measured at 5 points using a 3D noninvasive foot scanner.



which creates a 3D image of the feet, ankles & calves.



My measurements were compared to Selve's library of lasts, and the software progamme then recommends the correct shoe size(s) for each foot.

Leila from Selve then brought out a vast array of shoes in different styles, sizes & widths so we could check that the computer's measurements were accurate, as fit can be a very subjective matter, depending on what the individual customer finds comfortable.

Then, I wandered around the showroom, looking at the myriad styles on offer and bearing in mind that each shoe can be almost entirely customised once the basic style has been fixed on. With a choice of heel, color, fabric, lining and style, the customer's finished shoe can bear little or no resemblance to the Selve basic model.



The shoe above could be made in leather. It could have no contrast trim, or equally the contrast trim could be in suede. It could have one of many different heel types...you could make it look entirely different. For example: the shoe below could be made in red patent leather with shocking pink trim and a two inch heel...



Admission: about five years ago Selve made me a pair of leather boots for a piece I wrote in The Observer. I'm pretty sure I have the boot on the right below. Thing is, by the time I had chosen black leather, nixed the patchwork, changed the heel shape & heel height and raised the instep, it's hard to work out just which boot I started with..





I decided to choose a classic pair of brogues from their extensive mens collection. This should have been pretty simple, as I just went with the standard Selve brogue style and had only to pick the fabric & lining but this took me forever as I couldn't decide between leather & suede or the colour.



I could have ended up with something like this:



and I played briefly with the idea of silver or black patent brogues, but then my sensible side took hold, and dark brown was fixed upon. Then I just had to wait for my shoes to arrive in the post.

If you are tempted, (look they even do a bespoke over the knee boot):



their next appointments in the UK are from January 11 - January 13, 2010 from 9 am - 6 pm, at 34 Bruton Place, London W1J 6NR
www.selve.co.uk (They used to have a London salon, but the lease ended & they are doing trunk shows over here for the time being.)

In the US, please check out their website www.selve.us or visit their salon in lovely Red Bank, NJ.

(Regular readers will know that I spent several months in NJ this year &, when Selve got in touch to see if I cld do an appointment in Manhattan, I was amazed to discover that their only US salon was 10 miles down the road from the boys' house. Serendipity, obviously.)

For more pictures by me, including their bespoke traditional mens & golf shoes go to my flickr set here. I wrote about Selve handbags here.

How to keep your feet warm in New York winter: Sheepskin Lined Walking Boots

Until I moved to New York, I thought a British winter was cold. Then I discovered -15C + windchill in Manhattan and knew I had been labouring under a mammoth-sized delusion. (Of course friends from places like Minnesota laugh drily. They really know about cold & snow there.)

I quickly put together an NYC cold weather wardrobe, but I still always have cold feet. The icy pavements and enduring slush means that Hunter wellies (which have proper treaded soles) are the most practical winter footwear, but even with tights & cashmere socks my feet freeze. There are also times when wellies just feel a bit unsophisticated. They also look stupid with anything other than the skinniest of pants. And I am not even going to address the sartorial horror of the Ugg (ly) boot.

Then this Christmas my mother ordered herself these boots from the Celtic Sheepskin Company. They have waterproof nubuck outers and are lined with soft sheepskin. I've, erm, borrowed them to walk the dogs and have even worn them without socks. Did they keep my feet warm? Hell yeah.

They are utterly, brilliantly bloody marvellous.



£135 from The Celtic Sheepskin Company. They also sell wonderful sheepskin lined wellies, which my sister has & swears by, which are sold out at the moment.

Designer shoes? Depends how much...

It's always pained me to spend good money on shoes. I'm really hard on my footwear, jamming my shoes into my handbag so I can change depending on my transport options, walking everywhere in New York, often in very high heels, and getting my heel tips caught in grates, drains and pavement cracks more often than I can count. I need shoes I can wear every day without weeping over the repair cost of a torn heel or broken strap.

Not only that, but over the years that I've worked in fashion, I've seen the accessory lines ramp up their prices to such a ludicrous level that they no longer have even a remote connection to cost, but reflect only what the consumer is prepared to pay for a logo, a label or a red sole. And, most of the time, I'm just not willing to jump on that bandwagon. I can admire a beautiful shoe, a wonderful piece of craftsmanship but I am not willing to fork out half a month's Manhattan rent on a pair of shoes that will be worn only a few times each month.

I've already noticed some lines have dropped their accessory prices during this recession, and I suspect that there may be a gradual adjustment back down to the realms of aspirational affordability over the next year.

I do hope so, because at the moment I rely on Zara (about once every three months they produce a shoe I die for, and which gets me stopped in the street; the rest of the time, no), vintage, sample & normal sales and, I admit it, the odd gift from designers to fill up my shoe wardrobe. I do have beautiful, expensive shoes in my possession: I just shopped for them wisely.

And, because I am so hard on my shoes, I spend a fortune on shoe trees, boot supports and cobblers' bills to keep them looking tip top.

Every new pair of shoes gets taken to the shoemender to have a very thin rubber non-slip sole glued to the bottom (bar satin evening shoes obviously). That way the shoe lasts much longer and there's less chance of me going arse over tit (an all too frequent occurrence, given my coordination skills). Because, if you live in the northern hemisphere, chance are that you will be wearing those shoes in the rain more times than you think and nothing ruins a good shoe more than a leather sole being repeatedly plunked down on rainy pavements.

So, even if you abuse your shoes as I do, with a little care they can last and last - just as long, in fact, as a pair of over priced boutique ones.

Minnetonka Moccasins

I am obsessed with Minnetonka moccasins. Obsessed, I tell you. This burning love crept up slowly over a few years, and has developed into a long lasting relationship.

It all started back in 2006, when a very nice man, who worked next door to the idiot boy I was then dating, invited me to his office to have a squint at the shoes he imported from the US to the UK.

Being a fashion editor an’all, I was intrigued. In the small room were multiple shelves of moccasins. So far, so whatever.

Then I tried on the Moosehide Driving Mocs. Instant convert. The super thick cushioned inner sole is marshmallow soft; they were definitively the most comfortable shoe I had ever worn. (One of the reasons that they are so comfy is that traditional moccasins, unlike normal shoes, have their sides and sole constructed from one piece of leather which is then sewn to the upper, and which allows the shoe to flex and shape itself to your foot.)

The very nice man generously gifted me two pairs, the marshmallow-y driving shoes and a pair of classic beaded Thunderbirds, but I was busy being a high heel wearing fashion editor and, when I moved to New York a few months later, there just wasn't much call for flat shoes in my life.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year just after I left my US magazine. Running around on assignment in New York and driving nearly 5000 miles around California, I needed comfortable everyday shoes. I dug out both pairs and I've pretty much worn them to the exclusion of anything else. It doesn't hurt that they suddenly look right with everything from bare legs & shorts to skirts & opaque tights.


(My feet in Santa Barbara back in April)

They also make those suede moccasin boots that are always being photographed on Kate Moss et al. (Minnetonkas are the ur-moccasins in the American commercial market: they've been making them since 1946.)

UK: www.minnetonka.co.uk (official website, every style available)
US: Net a Porter (ankle & knee boots only)
Zappos (Neither style pictured above but a pretty wide selection nonetheless)
Minnetonkasales.com (very wide selection including the ones above)

They are substantially cheaper in the US, but I don't advise UK purchasers to order them from US websites: by the time customs, taxes & postage are paid, the difference often evaporates.

Ann Louise Roswald clogs

Revolting: Chanel SS10

If you really feel it is imperative to buy into the clog trend, now that Karl & Marc (kitten heel clogs? Kill me now), have given it a stamp of approval for next season, may I suggest eschewing their eye watering markups, and buying a traditional pair of clogs from talented fashion designer Ann Louise Roswald instead?

She's known primarily for her beautiful prints and lovely pieces, but Roswald’s Swedish father was originally a clogmaker, and in her early collections Ann Louise used her own customised clogs. She has since opened The Clog Studio as an extension of the Ann Louise Roswald brand and sells traditionally made Swedish clogs with orthapeodic wooden soles for women and children. They come in a dazzling array of colours, but just three simple styles.

The Sophia clog pictured is £56 for children & £95 for women.

The Clog Studio

Object of desire: Limited edition Oliver Sweeney Chelsea Boot

Here's one for my male readers: An Italian made, hand finished Chelsea boot with anatomical last in a limited edition of 50 from Oliver Sweeney.

£260 from the flagship Bond Street store & online at www.oliversweeney.com

Other objects of desire here

Selve: covetable everyday handbags

Four years ago I had the perfect pair of black calf leather boots custom made for me by Munich based bespoke shoemakers Selve (US), or (UK). I had been looking for a replacement for my perfect pair of Sigerson Morrison black boots for two years, but had found nothing. (The main problem was my skinny calves - the SM shop girls had told me that no one else had been able to do up the zips on the boots I bought. Their loss, my gain - at the time.)

It also isn't helpful that I have absurdly narrow heels, high insteps and one foot half a size bigger than the other, and very precise, anally retentive fashion editor requirements as to heel height & shape, toe shape, and height of leg. Selve managed to accommodate all these, in addition to lining the boots with gold leather.

I thought I had died & gone to heaven when my boots finally arrived.

Noodling around their website today, I was struck first by this teaser for the new winter collection:



The Saffron black boots, the St James brogue & the Venus Overknee are all lust worthy - and I love love that Selve can make these in any colour - or leather- of your choice.

I see also that they have added a small selection of bag shapes since I last looked. These aren't truly bespoke, but you can choose the colour of the bag and the strap. They don't come cheap, but they are beautiful.

I usually carry two bags in the winter, something for my laptop & papers, and a small one for lunches & cocktails.

This is my Selve favourite. The Sorbonne in Black Leather, perfect for laptop toting. £495/$650



But I also rather love the slightly smaller Montmartre in Brown Suede for weekends. £375/$550



And am completely beguiled by the Montmartre in Red Suede with a magenta strap but, like What Possessed Me, would find it hard to justify investing in a bright bag for everyday. £375/$550

Cole Haan - things are looking up

I have always thought of American accessories retailer Cole Haan as the place that successful women in their thirties or forties who like well made, stylish but not fashionable clothes go to to buy shoes & bags. They want good leather & a little bit of a heel, (but not enough to scare the horses). They are lawyers, senior management, bankers.

The last time I entered a Cole Haan store was with my mother in New York last November. She always finds several pairs of shoes she likes at the Columbus Circle branch on her annual Manhattan Christmas shopping trips.

I've never been that enthused: my usual MO in the Cole Haan store is to flop on the nearest chair with all the shopping bags, pecking away at my Blackberry whilst she makes some commission-based assistant's day.

Don't get me wrong: I always run a quick eye over the offer - my mama is very generous - just in case anything appeals but nope, never anything. The heels are always too low, the styles just the wrong side of frump chic and, to cap it all, pretty damn expensive for a shoe that doesn't have Alaia or Nick Kirkwood stamped on the sole.

I do like the concept of the super comfy Nike Air technology (Cole Haan is wholly owned by Nike), but never understood why they bothered putting it in a 3" heel: that's a starter shoe as far as I am concerned. My feet don't start to ache until my heels reach 4”.

Then I did a press appointment for Cole Haan last year when I was on the American publication, must have been for SS09, and was blown away. I saw plenty to like and a little to lust after. There were proper high heels, great bags and interesting skins. Sure there was a lot of ahem, influence, from the runways, but the finish was excellent and the designs fashion-y enough not to be immediately recognizable as Cole Haan. (This is absolutely a good thing.)

Browsing through the website today I saw a pair of shoes I think I might actually buy. Granted they are remarkably familiar to a pair I bought in Paris three seasons ago – but they would be my everyday shoes (finally a higher heel shoe from Cole Haan with Nike Air technology) for this season, and I wouldn't expect them to last style-wise beyond this winter.

The Nancy Air Sandal



I am, however, going to draw a veil over the boot offer. ($498 for a faux cropped cowboy boot? Please.) And the website still needs work. A lot of work. No zoom function, no 360 views, only one picture of each shoe, no view all function, and a very slow load.

(I'd be interested to know from my American readers what they think about Maria Sharapova's new line for Cole Haan. There's an interesting pair of black suede flat over the knee boots, that come with Nike Air bounce. Kind of appealing for trekking round fashion week. Believe me, even if you have a car & driver, your feet HURT.)

More shoes....

These are the other shoes I bought: petrol blue fringed suede $24.99 at, yup, Payless. I have to say that these don't look like disposable fashion to me. Kudos to Payless.

Olivia Morris sample sale

Delicious shoes. Almost worth getting on a plane/breaking my shopping moratorium.

Old Navy summer shoe shopping

I've been searching for some comfy, clunky summer shoes that I can wear to the new day job for ages. Because I'm a half size with exceptionally narrow heels I fall out of most styles, can't wear slingbacks & can't abide heeled mules (trashy), so I generally wear either Mary Janes or styles with ankle straps. They're suprisingly hard to find and, because I'm not in the market for expensive shoes at the moment, I've been stumped up until now.

So, when I discovered that a pair of Old Navy shoes I'd read about were reduced to $19.99, I didn't just buy one pair: I bought them in black and in red, plus another ankle strap platform style in white & in black too. They're all exceptionally comfortable with padded inner soles and canvas strapping.Okay. I accept it. I buy too many shoes. And I'm not very good at self restraint. Still four pairs of shoes for $80 odd dollars plus postage. That's really not a bad deal, although my inability to just be happy with one pair explains why I never have any money.When I went on-line to pick up these images I saw these new on-line extremely pretty ribbon tie espadrilles . Normally tie wedge espadrilles are uncomfortable as the ribbons cut into your ankles and twisted ankles are common as there is no support, but the clever design of these means that the ties are soft cotton jersey, and their extra woven side support stops one slipping off the sides.

But, no, I'm not buying them. Five pairs of shoes in one week is making me feel very guilty as it is, regardless of price point.

Iconic British footwear brand to fold

So it seems like the end of an era: Dolcis, the British High Street shoe shop, which can trace its history back to a barrow trader in the 1860s, is to disappear from the High Street.

The news isn't surprising: the brand went into administration last month, and ninety stores closed immediately. Footwear company Stylo, which operates the Shellys and Barratts brands, has aquired Dolcis. They intend to run the stores for three months, after which ten will be rebranded as Barratts and the remaining 85 will close.

Dolcis is another casualty of the price squeeze in the middle market: fellow High Street store Ravel folded last year. With the advent of low priced, highly fashionable shoe ranges at Primark and New Look, which shift milllions of pairs a year, the market for shoes of similar quality but at prices 25 % higher was almost totally eroded.

It hasn't helped that the above clothing stores, along with most of the Arcadia Group (Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Principles), plus Zara, Mango etc all now sell shoes alongside their other retail offers, thereby reducing the need to visit separate shoe shops.

Fifteen years ago, this wasn't the case. Dolcis & Ravel were perceived as fashionable, part of the very limited shoe choice on the High Street but, as our access to fashion has become increasingly democratised, so our desire to buy more fashionable and cheaper footwear has increased. Dolcis was left flailing in the wake of a huge industry change, with no brand identity and an aging customer.

Image: Dolcis advert 1931. Available to buy from Prints-online.com

Topshop gladiator sandal

This is the shoe of the summer. £20 at Topshop. Slightly unfortunate that it's going to look very wrong on a lot of women. Do not even think about it unless your legs are up to it.( No point in diminshing the allure of your assets.) There is nothing more unflattering than an ankle strap chopping up your silhouette, giving you tree trunk calves. (I include those fug ugly mid calf boots in the dodgy silhouette group too: I have one word. Trotters.)

The power of a brand name

I popped into Hampstead Gap last week for a quick poke around the sale (I love me a Gap sale), and found not just a pair of tailored black flannel short shorts for £2.99(£2.99!), but a big pile of Pierre Hardy Mary Jane style pointy toe flatties. When Pierre Hardy's shoes for The Gap launched in London, I was in Manhattan, and my beloved editor friend E purchased me a pair of the black patent platform heels and posted them to me back in New York.

I had fully expected all three styles in the Pierre range to have sold out by the time I returned to England in December, and certainly the black heels had been snapped up immediately, but thw two tone shoes and the Mary Janes were still kicking around in store.

A chat with the Hampstead manager revealed that they aren't being marketed as Pierre Hardy shoes, and so no one was buying them. Same story in Camden Gap. The manager's theory? If they stuck a big Pierre Hardy sign above them, they'd fly out of the store...

Kurt Geiger sale

I usually avoid the sales like the plague. Way too many sweaty bodies and grabby hands, mixed with ankle bashing pushchairs and over-heated stores. No thank you. Of course this just means that I troll the interweb instead looking for bargains when I should be filing copy. T turned up to give me a lift to A's baby shower last weekend wearing the most perfect black Whistles (of all unlikely places) ankle boots with opaque Wolfords and a tiny dress, and I lusted badly for her look. Hers have sold out now, but these Kurt Geiger ones are just £99 reduced from £180. I like the dip in the front as this always makes your ankles look thinner & your legs longer. Only problem is that I am on an economy drive and unfort my KG press discount card only works on full-price merchandise. Yah boo sucks. I must stop torturing myself.

Johnny, Johnny - pull your socks up

I am so very, very disappointed with Boden. When I posted back at the beginning of November I was very enthusiastic about their offer but, because of my peripatetic lifestyle, I had missed the UK AW07 press day so hadn't actually seen it in the flesh.

I made an order for two pairs of boots and a leather satchel on 08 November. They warned me that the riding boots had a 2 week delay & the satchel a 1 week delay, but that the other boots were in stock. On 16 Nov (8 days later - far, far too long) I received an e-mail telling me that the pair in stock had been dispatched. As of today, the 29th, still no sign of them. However a couple of days later, the riding boots arrived, out of the blue (no dispatch email). Unfortunately, their sizing is completely f**ked up, and a size UK6 was enormous.

Today, the 29th, I finally received the satchel. What an enormous letdown. Although well-made, it looks extremely cheap. The leather is floppy, which is not how it was shown on the website. The web image purports to show a more structured bag with a flat bottom - but instead it is just completely shapeless. A classic example of catalogue over-styling.

And what really, really galls me is that I now have to schlep to the post office, with two heavy, unwieldly boxes, & have to pay quite a lot of money to return both the (very, very heavy) boots and the bag for mistakes of Boden's making. (Their sizing is inaccurate, and the photograph on the site erroneous.)

I emailed customer services the day before yesterday, querying the missing boots and still no reply. In this day and age it is ludicrous that customers cannot track & trace their orders after purchase. If Boden is to succeed in the US it seriously needs to pull its socks up and invest in both a decent inventory system, and a meticulously accurate on-line track & trace system. Frankly, their technological offer is antediluvian. They also need to post more accurate product images: the lifestyle stuff is all well & good, but is ultimately misleading.

My advice? Avoid like the plague. Enormously disappointing.


Leather satchel as shot for catalogue.


Leather satchel as arrived chez LLG

Pierre Hardy for Gap IS coming to the US

WGSN reports today that Gap WIlL be launching the covetable Pierre Hardy shoe collection in the US, three months after the European collection made its debut in France and in the UK. The collection will be available online and in Gap stores nationwide beginning February 2008. It's not clear yet whether this will be the same collection that was available in Europe, as Hardy has been tapped for a second collection to launch in the Spring in Europe.

Lest you are unfamilar with Pierre Hardy, apart from his blissful eponymous line, he has also designed some of the most iconic shoes for Balenciaga and for Hermes. He's possibly the most exciting, and stealth, shoe designer working today. He's a super intellignt choice for Gap: instead of using a marquee (and somewhat vulgar) name like H&M did with Cavalli, they have gone for a designer whose work speaks for itself, rather than screaming off the pages of gossip rags.

It's interesting that they are launching here, as the European Gaps are run separately from the US ones: they have their own design team, producing vastly superior and more fashion forward pieces than the US team. Back in August the UK PR told me that the US team were visiting London imminently to talk about buying from the European collection. Let's hope that the Pierre Hardy collection is the first step in this direction. (Especially for me: Gap is twice the price in the UK.)

The US collection will range from platforms to flats priced $78-$98, which is a damn sight cheaper than it was in England, where the black platform heels retailed for £70/$140.

I, of course, am feeling smug as my pair of Pierre for Gap arrive today, courtesy of my fabulous ex-managing editor who offered, yes, offered to go buy me a pair and send them to the US after reading on here of my desire for a pair of Mr Hardy's diffusion shoes.

Jimmy Choo to blame for marriage breakdown - OF COURSE!

ran this piece of retrograde chauvinism from the ex-husband of Jimmy Choo maven Tamara Mellon today. It is truly mind boggling that in this day and age a man feels threatened when his wife is fiscally successful. Then again Mellon is an ex-addict with a trust fund...and of course the marriage breakdown was nothing to do with his well-publicised falling off the wagon....

November 20, 2007 -- MOST men don't find high heels very macho, but for Matthew Mellon, they took away his entire manhood. The ex-husband of Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon tells next month's W magazine, "When your wife makes $100 million during the course of your marriage, it's quite a shocker . . . I felt like my masculinity had been stripped from me. I feel like my b - - - s are in a jar, like a Damien Hirst artwork on the mantelpiece."

Yellow patent leather sandals by Jimmy Choo from Netaporter

Lovely, lovely shoes

These are the Pierre Hardy for Gap sandals which launched in London, today, Thursday. I really, really want a pair. £70.

Stop press: I love my blog and I love my old managing editor who has just emailed to say she is buying these on my behalf & can mail them to me here in the States/hand them over to my sis. Words cannot express.