(fine) nail art

Even as I key in the post title, there's a hint of a naughty smile spreading across my lips. Deceptive. It's nothing to do with the
laughable scrolls you've decided to sport on a centimeter sq of your fingers and/or toes this summer, which your mind conjures up on reading the title; instead it's got everything to do with your shoes!


After over a decade working in TV, Rob Goodwin returned to school (CSM, natch) to learn how to make shoes and good thing he did. It's a new take on performing that little magic cum mind-over-matter trick: walking on nails and it's darn pretty, a belied ruggedness!! I whooped for joy just looking at the genius of his MA Final Collection (2010). I mean how does one even begin to think up such chic decadence from commonplace elements?! Forget the shoes, which in themselves are made beautifully; the nails are beckoning. Rob Goodwin intimates that all his creations are made by hand and I wish I could simply sit beside him and watch him work. (Even if he's also translated this love for fashioning leather into some rather scary masks/helmets, what girl doesn't love a man who uses his hands??) The theme of his showcase collection: "a regal yet decadent masked ball held in the depths of the Congo Delta... a Kongo Bacchanal." Yes siree.

There are conflicting emotions rippling through my being, a chaos into which I love being drawn. It sort of happens whenever a designer challenges my creative open-mindedness with a piece. The curve of what would be the outer sole is so sexy and entirely shoegasmic, even though a few aspects of the low calf boot, in particular, remind me of cowboy boots, which I, uhh... despise. Indeed, I'm already picking out a dress for this imaginary revelry in my mind.

Rob Goodwin's collection reminds me of the now seemingly subdued Acne pre SS 2010 series of shoes made with thin industrial style rusty nails for heels. (Also at The Corner.) The shoes drew a succession of emotions from me when I first glimpsed them. It was inspiring, then repulsive (surely one doesn't want to walk around with a rusty shoe?), then simply pretty (the detailed pattern of rusting (up close), like a delicate splattering) and back to inspiring again. In the three-nailed versions, the principal nail-heel makes contact with the ground, while the two shorter ones are actually removable. The asteria pump (top left) would make an exceptional pairing with this Anne Valerie Hash limited ed lace wedding dress (bottom); the price tag ($76,900) of which I refuse to acknowledge. It must be a mistake and decimal point is certainly one to the left, at least. A wedding dress doesn't have to be a wedding dress. Can I just say that seeing the lace used up close in Ms. Hash's RTW pieces over at Dover Street Market is just LOVE.





I'm running late, and I'm afraid to go over my post. Ooops.
Patchouli scented kisses.