Archive for September, 2011
I have never, ever swooned over shoes like I am with Prada’s Spring 2012 collection. I know that they’re tchotchkes in every sense of the word and guess what – I don’t care. Yes, they’re one note and totally ostentatious but that’s what I love about them. The sheer boldness of these shoes is unbelievable. Intellectually I appreciate the references as well. Flames streaming off the back of the heels allude to high speed pursuits, whilst the complimentary pairs featuring brake lights represent inertia as a counterbalance.
Perhaps it is the push/pull of automobiles, the duality of car culture, that the collection sought to explore. After all, the great irony of driving is that the vehicle is the one “doing” the moving; us humans sit stationary inside. The idea of designing heels to look like cars as a riff about feet as the “engines of motion” on the human body would be a very Prada move, now wouldn’t it?
Creating heels for the luxury fashion market that are literally modeled after cars is a risky move. A move that anyone but Miuccia Prada would probably be lambasted for, but as Garance famously said, ‘Everything Prada touches turns to gold.” In this case, it’s clear Miucca still has the Midas touch.
My personal favorite, the pair I hope to own, are the red and black wedges in the photo above. Which of these shoes are you liking the best? Do you love these shoes as much as I do?
When I’m out walking around I often see weird things. For example, one time I witnessed an older man, extremely well dressed, carry a giant stuffed animal penguin down Rush Street. It was so odd. Then again, I’m always scouting for street-style photos so I’ve become quite accustomed to constantly monitoring my surroundings. You’d be surprised at what normal people do on the sidewalks when they think no one is looking.
So I always become happy when I stumble upon special moments. Yesterday I heard a little girl with a large red shopping bag tell her mom that “today is the best day of my life because I finally got to visit the American Girls.” It made me remember how excited I was to get my first American Girl doll (Samantha). It’s little things like these that make me smile, all these personal moments. In fact, it’s what I love most about living in a world-class city. There’s infinite layers of human experience all super-imposed on top of a spectacular, visually stimulating urban environment. That’s why it’s not as rare as you might think for me to see something like this bride and her bridesmaid jumping for joy after the wedding ceremony. Life is happening all around us in a city like Chicago, but rarely do I have my camera ready as I did this time. It was in my hand, powered on, with the lens cap off and ready to go. This time it was good luck, plain and simple, and boy did I luck out.
