Time to Wrap it Up!!

It's my last day in China! Yippee!! Well, until I come back on the 15th anyway. ;)

Ana (Jill Stuart designer) and I stayed late last night finishing details and correcting samples while the other designers went and had a lovely Italian dinner. 

...oh well. 

OMG! Funny story... So Ana and I got to the hotel late last night and I had the key in my back pocket. Well, I guess I had sat on it at some point and it broke in half. So my dumb ass tries to stick in the half with the microchip in the slot anyway. Bad idea. 

So the key half is stuck inside the key slot but a piece is sticking out. So Ana goes for her tweezers to pull the piece out but NoooOOoOO... I have to go and stick the other half in to jam the thing up. Why?? I don't know.

Now we're screwed. We go to the information desk and we try to tell the girl what happened, but I don't speak Chinese and she, of course, doesn't speak English so I sort of gesture to her- KEY...BREAK... BREAK (as if I speak slow and loud she'll get it)

"prease waitamoment"

Ok... so I go sit down on the floor in front of our room with Ana. 

The lady comes back, stares at the door and then "prease waitamoment" again.

It was WAY more than a moment.

We're just sitting there waiting... la la la.... when Ana gets a brilliant idea! 

"Vat if vee had superrrrglue!" (Russian accent)

"Ohmigod! Brilliant! Do you have any??"

"... vell, no"

"oh."

But then another brilliant idea...

"I do have zis wax stuff for my teef. Vee can stickit on za card and zen pull out the other half!"

"YES! Ok, gimmie!"

Ok, so that didn't work so well. Back to sitting on the floor. That's when we decided that this would be a funny moment if we were doing a reality TV show about shoe designers in China. Ana's idea. I'm telling you, she's a genius. I mean if Dion Sanders can get a show...

Anyway, so finally a handyman came and took our door apart and looked pretty annoyed with us. We ordered room service and called it a night. 

That is the most excitement I had in China. :)

Time to Detail...

 

Soooooooo, it's finally come down to my last few days in China which means its time to detail my line. That means I get these things called detail sheets with pictures of each shoe on them. I tell them what leather or fabric I want for each style. I detail the upper, the trims, the sock, the heel, the outsole... every little detail. It's super tedious and a little overwhelming, but it has to be done. 

It's funny cause it's both my favorite and least favorite part of designing. It's where your shoe becomes something real. It goes from prototype to actual real shoe! ;)

This is a Last...

For those of you who don't know, this is called a last. It's the base for the shape of the shoe. Kind of like a mold of a foot. plus added room for shape. For every different shoe there is a different last, no matter how slight the difference may be.

Lasts are made one of two ways... expensive shoes have custom lasts made by last makers, or "modelistas". For those brands who can't afford custom designed lasts, or who are just not fashion forward enough to lead the way in shoe shapes- lasts are copied. 

We as designers go out to the market and we shop for shapes that we love. If it's a wedge or a heel or a pump or whatever, we buy it and send it to China to have a mold made of it.

If its an entire shoe shape we want, they pour a sort of hardening liquid into the shoe and it makes the shape. Then, the last maker refines it and tries to make it as close to the original as he can. When we see it we'll sometimes tweak it a little to make it our own. It's all a crazy involved process. Same goes for copying heels. A heel maker will make a wooden carving to match the original shape and when we OK it, they will send it out to have plastic molds made for mass production.

After the last is to our liking, we start to make shoes on them. Pattern makers take the last and develop the upper patterns according to the shape and measurements of the last, along with standard measurements for footwear. Then, they cut the leather, send it to the sewers, then the sewers hand all the pieces to the lasters, and they "last" the shoe. Which means taking the upper and stretching and nailing/gluing the upper to the last. then the bottom is attached and the last is slipped out. Then your foot goes where the last was. 

I hope this is all making sense? 

They bring the shoe to me, usually in groups, and a fit model with standard measurements comes in and tries on the shoes. I then adjust the patterns to make the shoes look and fit the way they are supposed to. The shoe I posted yesterday was a "first proto" which is the roughest proto. You can see my notes on the shoe. I corrected the top line of the shoe with masking tape. You can see the new line I want cause it was too low before. Then you can see that I am making the two straps a little wider and curvier. I am also changing the last that this shoe is on to make the toe shape a little wider since this is for a junior brand. This shoe is cute the way it sits, but I think it's a little too sexy for our girl. I will probably see 3 or 4 protos of this shoe before approving it.

Crazy, right? This is what I do.

Let's Follow a Sample...

Ok... so this is what I'm doing in China.

First, you make a sketch...

Then you color it up and send it to China...

Then comes the first prototype...

Next come the corrections. I'll keep you posted :)

Torrential Downpour...

So as you've all heard, I'm sure... there's a big ol typhoon hitting Southern China (me) right now. It's pretty scary sometimes, but I think it's supposed to be on it's way out. 

"From June 6 to 16, nine provinces in the country's east, south and southwest had experienced torrential rain, leaving 63 people dead, 13 missing and 1.6 million people displaced, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs." China News

The crappiest part about it is that we were in the middle of moving our office over the new office right in the middle of it. So basically, I've been here for 4 days and I've been sitting on my ass... waiting. I have 55 shoes to see, correct, and detail before I leave. Yikes. 

So... since I'm here with a whole lot of waiting to do- is there anything you guys wanna see or know about? Now's the time to ask...

Tokyo to China

Tokyo was awesome, although pretty hard to take in in only 2 days. I hoped to see more of those awesome "Harajuku girls" in costumes. You know, like in that Fruits magazine? The weather was pretty bad so maybe that was to blame? Anyway, the shopping in Harajuku was pretty amazing. Suuuuuuper expensive, but cute. It was weird though, it was like cheap looking American style clothing that cost $80 a t-shirt.

Something I didn't expect though was the terrible shoes! We noticed that about 95% of all the girls had ill-fitting or just plain ugly shoes. It was so weird. They were either too big or too small. Plus, it seemed that nobody knew how to walk in heels. So funny. 

OMG! Get this- our first day we went to Starbucks and ran into two designers from Roxy that live in Huntington and totally know my hubby! Talk about small world, huh? So crazy.

Now I'm in China to really work. :( We're in a new office and it's like 5x bigger than the old one. Plus, no rats so far so thats good. Haha. 

Off to Distant Lands...

Ok everyone... the time has come. I'm leaving for Japan in a couple of hours, and then it's China and making all my Harajuku Lovers and JLO samples. I'll be gone for a couple of weeks but I'll try to update as often as possible. :)

I wanna give you all the inside scoop of what it's like working in China. It's pretty crazy.

Anyway, Here I go. I'll talk to you guys soon! I can't wait to see how the Harajuku collection looks. I'll try to post pictures of the sketches, samples and finished product so you get a better idea of how shoes are made. Wish me luck!

Have You Been Searching For a Way to Make Your Baby Look Like a Whore??

Well the folks over at Heelarious have your solution! High heels for babies!

No, I'm not joking. I think I might puke. 

In this Bratz day and age I'm truly not surprised to see this, but still- I am disappointed. I think we need to leave high heels, makeup, hair extentions and all that crap to us older girls. The sexualizing of children is getting way out of hand. Plus, that aside, they are just plain ugly! Little babies are chubby with plumpy little feeties that do NOT look good in "sexy shoes". Look at that picture! The baby looks like an obese woman cramming her feet in a pair of heels.

Now sure, I know this is supposed to be funny, as the name suggests, but I just don't think it is. What's next, baby thongs? I'm not a mom, but I plan to be someday, and I know I would never put my baby in these. What about you moms? What do you think??

Has Steve Madden Gone Too Far???

Ok, so I found this this morning and it fired me up. I don't understand how he can just blatantly knock off designer shoes and get away with it! The shoe shown in this post is an Alexander McQueen shoe, and the shoe of the week is Steve Madden's "interpretation". 

This is basically stitch for stitch the same shoe. The buckle is different but I'm sure that's only because Steve Madden didn't want to open up a mold for a new buckle. 

I've put this up as the shoe of the week cause I'm interested to see what you guys think (and for some reason you don't like to leave comments, with the exception of 3 or 4 of you) 

Honestly, there's a part of me that thinks that designer knock offs are great. It's a way of bringing high style to the masses. (am I repeating myself, I feel like I've said this before?) But then you have to realize that it effs up the whole scheme of things because by definition, high style is such BECAUSE it is elevated from the masses. Make sense? 

Snobby? Maybe, but you know I'm right.

What do you think???

Are You Over the Gladiator Trend?

Do you say thumbs down to gladiators? They are everywhere right now! Usually the sign of the death of a trend is when it saturates the market so much that it trickles down to places like Payless. And what do you know... Payless has not one but a few gladiator styles. 

I dunno... I'm still feeling it. Especially the higher versions! And what do you think about studs on shoes? I'm surprised to still find styles I like. Like this Lanvin shoe that hits both of these trends. A studded gladiator. Pretty cute, huh?

So where do YOU sit on the issues? Thumbs up or the dreaded thumbs DOWN...?

WTF?

Ok so ya, this is old news but since I have yet to address it... it's still news on this here blog. What is up with Marc Jacobs and his effed up ads. Does this make you want to buy his product? Cause I personally love the MJ, but his ads... not so much. He might as well not put any ads out, right? 

It's not even like his ads are avant garde or controversial. They're just riding along on the fug train. I dunno, what do you guys think??

SALE!!! Shoe Seen in Sex And The City: The Movie

This super sexy Proenza Schouler shoe (similar to the one SJP wore in SATC) is on SALE (!!!) at Barneys for $435 right now! Get 'er while she lasts! This is the 2 strap version, where the one SJP is wearing is the cross strap. Anyway... close enough, right?

Just a heads up for my girls. ;)

She Screams Sexy!

Check out THIS shoe! She's S-E-X-Y, sexy! I love the oversized covered stud around the ankle. Sure, it's a little reminiscent of an alcohol monitoring system, but those are cool now, right? I mean all those rad celebs are wearing them, right. Haha. Anyway, seriously. This shoe is hot. Super high, super sexy slick patent leather. It also comes in nude, which is what I got... but that's only for us super sluts. ;)

Give me a sky high sexy shoe and I'm happy. And this is just that. You can find her at Nordstrom online for $270.

This Shoe Has My Name on it...

... literally. It's by Celine. Unfortunately- me no likey. I do appreciate the beautiful craftsmanship of the shoe, (as cheesy as that may sound) but I hate the dingle thingy. It looks like a lanyard. You know, from summer camp? For such a sophisticated looking shoe I think it's an odd choice of ornament. Do you agree?

 

I do like the pop of color against the classic brown and white. Who knows, maybe someone more sophisticated (a nice way of saying older) could rock the shit out of this shoe. If you think you could, you can find it at net-a-porter, here for $900.

I'm a BAD BLOGGER!!!

I'm so sorry for not updating. I'm working super hard on finishing all my details for my lines and that's all I have time for!!! AHHH! Oh yea, and some birthday madness of course. ;)

I'll make up for it I'm sure. Until then, enjoy these cuties...

Tomorrow's the Big Day!

No, I'm not talking about the fact that tomorrow is my birthday... even BIGGER! Tomorrow is the day when all my hard work pays off. Well- hopefully anyway. ;)

Tomorrow I'm presenting the proposed Harajuju Lovers line to Gwen and her team! I'm super excited and I REALLY hope they like it. My stomach hurts and I can't eat. I'm super nervous!! 

I've been working on the line for about a month now and assuming everything is approved, I'm going to Japan and then China at the end of this month to have the samples made!

We will be launching the line at the August shoe show! (for more info you can check Titan's website)

Anyway, wish me luck! I guess either way I get to spend my birthday hanging out with Gwen so it can't be all bad, right? ;)

The Loss of a Legend...

"What I would like to do is to go away, go away for a long time, without doing anything in particular, forget everything, and then come back to see if I still want to make dresses."
- Yves Saint Laurent's reply on a questionnaire that is part of an exhibition of his works at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Yves Saint Laurent, born Aug 1st, 1936. He left home at the age of 17 to work for the French designer Christian Dior. Following Dior's death in 1957, Yves, at the age of 21, was responsible for saving the Dior house from financial ruin. In 1983, he became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 2001, he was awarded the rank of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur by French president Jacques Chirac.
YSL had been the first to put women in pants, the first to give them tuxedos, and the first to use black models for his catwalk shows. He was a pioneer and a legend.
Yves Saint Laurent retired in 2002 and became increasingly reclusive. Paying tribute to his mentors, including Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli and Chanel, he said that his decision was based on a disgust with an industry that had become ruled more by commercial gain than art. "I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing," he said. "Elegance and beauty have been banished."
From then until his death he spent much of his time at his house in Marrakech, Morocco. He later created a foundation with his lover and business partner, Pierre Bergé in Paris to trace the history of the house of YSL, complete with 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing.
He lost his battle with brain cancer on June 1, 2008 at his home in Paris. 

The world of fashion was deeply changed because of YSL's genius and for that, he will live on forever.

SALE ALERT!!!

Remember these??? Well, they're now on SALE at Saks for $800!!! YIPPEE

I'm just looking out for my girls. ;)

Super Cute and Pin-Upy!

How adorable are these? So sassy and right for summer! I'm loving cork right now and these are so super cute. I love the vintage pin up feel with the oversized bow and sexy ankle wrap.

They're on sale at Zappos for $171.00! Go get um!

;)