fly away / home

i've lived in los angeles for just about a year and a half now.

in many ways, i still feel like a total newbie.

but, it's pretty amazing how easily and quickly one adapts to the weather here.

(i'm sure that's hard to imagine.....)

next week, i'm leaving for a work trip to italy, and if i'm lucky, i'll have a little mini break in london.

the trouble is..... what the heck is the weather like in those places?

for those of us who have been living in perpetual mild temperatures, any trip to a location with real seasons is a bit of a challenge. 

how cold is cold, again?

how many layers go under a wool coat?

is it weird to wear a wool hat with bare legs?

etc.

but i find it particularly challenging to pack for this upcoming trip, since the weather in both places is kind of in flux. it's springtime!

so, at least in london, i think that means it cold be a nice freezing rain, or a mild, grey day....

but in bologna? milan? 

here's the current weather in bologna:

and the forecast for next week is much warmer, with some sun.

but obviously, mother nature could change her mind entirely, and dump some snow, or decide on tropical, balmy weather......

since it's been so long since i've been able put together a layer-ladled outfit, i've been really inspired by some of these looks, from the blogs:

(photos courtesy of de quelle planète es-tu?)

 

(photos courtesy of the sartorialist)

but i'm afraid that i'll wind up wearing my l.a. uniform of jeans, t shirts, sneakers and some brass jewelry..... and carrying an umbrella everywhere.

have i mentioned that i never ever check my luggage? so, over-packing is not an option......

so what do you think? should i fill my roll-y suitcase with black tights, smart wool skirts & jackets and my favorite, neglected +j beanie?

or my new pierre hardy sneakers and a trench coat?

or what?

look, i'm leaving in a week, so i'll pretty much be spending every non-working moment figuring out the nuances to packing.

if you've got some tips & tricks, let me know!

much better/follow up

ok, with all the discussion around wedge sneakers, and my dislike of them, a week or so ago, i found myself revisiting my love for pierre hardy sneakers, which i consider the best alternative to the isabel marant wedgies.

and so i bought some.

and i'm feeling much better:

see how my feet & body all look nice and normally proportioned!? 

i feel much more like i have feet, and less like i have hooves.

fancy french sneakers.

no icky, weird feelings. hooray!

rip offs

to follow up from yesterday's post, i thought i would make clear the difference between a designer being inspired by another designer's work....

and a straight up knock off.

designers being inspired by one another (as we saw yesterday) is nowhere near illegal or even ethically questionable. fashion trends are real, and fashion trends are how designers and retailers make their money.

if see by chloe thinks they can sell and profit from creating a shoe that looks a heck of a lot like a pierre hardy one, there really is nothing wrong with that behavior....

other than the fact that it sort of throws into question the status of a luxury diffusion line's design chops.

but to blatantly steal the work of a designer is another thing all together.....

and it happens more often than you might think. below are two recent examples:

(photos courtesy of new york magazine. click here for the story.)

on the left is the christian louboutin's style "staratata" and on the right a style from jessica simpson's line, called "evangela"

(photo courtesy of nbcnewyork.com. click here for the story.)

and another great example- on the left, derek lam's style "ayami" and a shoe from ivanka trump's line, "cadie"

(both comparisons are style from spring 12. i believe you can find all four of these shoes at retail now. or could, at least, before the media attention.)

there are some subtle differences in the knock offs, to be sure..... but there can be no question that the shoes made under trump and simpson's names were meant to be confused with the original louboutin and lam styles.

both knock offs were sold for a quarter (or less) of the price that the designer version sold for.

you can make up your own mind about the price that a shoe is worth. i'm not going to tell you that you should be spending upwards of $700 on a sandal. there's certainly no need for that.

however, the frustrating thing is that neither jessica simpson or ivanka trump themselves were responsible for these shoes being made. i'm guessing that both of them are customers of luxury designers, personally, and will be mortified to find out that such theft has happened under their names.

both lines of shoes are "designed" and manufactured by large american shoe companies that have purchased the licenses to trump and simpson's names. these companies hire "line builders" to go out and shop the markets to find styles to copy.

the reason that these companies feel ok about doing this is that they actually wind up making more money on these styles than derek lam or christian louboutin ever will.

lam & louboutin probably manufactured approximately 1000 pairs of each of these styles.

the companies responsible for trump & simpson's knock offs probably manufactured approximately 20-30,000 pairs. even with the lower price, it's clear to see who makes a more significant profit.

(especially when you consider the fact that there was NO investment of money into the design and development of these styles. lam & louboutin pay designers and technicians to make these things. trump & lam's business partners go out and buy a pair, and send them off to a factory in china to duplicate. nice & easy!)

in the mind of these large companies, it is well worth the potential lawsuit and lawyers fees to participate in this kind of practice. the legal fees, in fact, are built into the cost of running their businesses.

in fact, the media attention that these "scandals" get is often such good advertising for the knock off styles, that the legal fees are probably offset by the uptick in sales!

sooooo.....

while i might tease a company like see by chloe for not having an original idea, i also might very well go out and buy one of their styles.

what i try really really hard not to do is buy from companies that i know blatantly steal from "real" designers.

i think a lot about these things, because i work in the industry, i am a designer and know designers who are out of work.

i do believe that part of the reason that these talented folks don't have jobs is because the american public doesn't know (or maybe doesn't care?) that mass marketed fashion is produced on the backs of designers who will never make as much money or be as profitable as the folks that are stealing from them.

when i first started typing up this post, i didn't intend for it to be political. but how can it not be?





i'm really inspired by the number of people who are starting to really ask questions about where their food and clothing come from, and what impact their consumer choices have on communities near and far....

so, i guess i am asking- which is more important to you? having a hot pair of shoes that cost $75 and the degradation of air quality in southern china....

 or a pair of $600 shoes that support designers, technicians and artisans in cities like new york?

there are compromises, i think....

coming up next in this series? i'll try to do a little feature on some reasonably prices shoes that are made with less questionable politics.

ok...... there's a good research project for me ;)

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there's a late-breaking addition to this subject!




read it here.

uh oh!

although i love this wedge sandal that see by chloe did for spring 12...

i'm kind of disappointed that they so obviously lifted the design inspiration from these wedges, which were from pierre hardy's spring 11 collection:

see by chloe is a diffusion line, so i don't expect all of their styles to be the most innovative things ever. in fact, it's often quite useful for a diffusion line to reference the design of the main line. 

of course, the see by chloe style isn't a knock off, per se..... but it does seem like the designers were at a loss for their own voice, and looked to the hardy shoes for reference.

i can't get down with this

i think a lot of you know that i'm a shoe designer, as my "day job".

i'll just mention it again now, as an excuse for why i have such strong feelings about footwear.

and here's my latest vent- sneakers with hidden wedges...

isabel marant has been doing these for a number of seasons, and they must be selling like hotcakes for her to still be doing new versions of them:

(however, i've only seen them on the street once.)

the fashion crowd seems to love the "leg lengthening" aspects of these shoes, which may or may not be real. however, i just can't stand the proportions of them. it's a bit hard to describe, but i having that wedge in there just changes the way that it seems like your foot is shaped inside.

it makes the foot look shorter (in length) and smaller than the actual size of the wearer's foot, and really exaggerates the top of the arch. it sort of almost reminds me of foot binding.

you can kind of see it in this photo:

obviously i'm in the minority of not liking these. as i've said, they've been embraced by fashion editors and bloggers the world over.

and now, marc jacobs has gotten into the act. he showed a few colors of these shoes for spring 12:

the proportions here are even worse. i hate the slight bump at the toe that remind me of the stride rite sneakers that i wore as a kid. these shoes really look like a brick at the bottom of the leg.

i really think it's a shame, because i love sneakers. and i love high-end sneakers even more. but i just can't get down with this trend.

what do y'all think? do you like them? it's ok if you think i'm crazy.....

wanna know which sneakers i'd buy if i were planning on dropping a few hundred dollars? (and which ones i recommend to you, dear reader, as an alternative to the cement shoes above?)

pierre hardy.

toujours: