If you're looking to be in step with fashion this season, French shoe designer Robert Clergerie suggests investing in a pair of low-heeled pumps, preferably in silver or gray and definitely made of butter-soft kid leather. Oh, yeah, and don't forget to pick up a pair of black or red rubber-soled Mary Janes and men's-style oxfords.
Clergerie was one of a handful of celebrated European shoemakers--including Manolo Blahnik, Giovanna Ferragamo and Andrea Pfister--who traveled to Los Angeles recently to help put a little kick in America's closets this fall.
Clergerie's suggestion is to look for shoes devoid of heavy ornamentation, which Clergerie sees as the amateur's crutch.
Surrounded by Neiman Marcus shoppers slipping their feet into a pair of the designer's classic brown satin or black suede platforms (priced around $300), the designer offered, "When an idea is strong, the best way to express it is simply."
Although other shoemakers may question Clergerie's minimalist approach to design, most agree with his pronouncement that gray is the season's most versatile color.
Ferragamo, daughter of the late Salvatore Ferragamo and ladies' ready-to-wear designer whose work helps define the Ferragamo footwear collection each season, is especially enamored of a gray flannel dress pump with an 8-centimeter heel and matching handbag that she sees as this fall's bestselling twosome.
The Ferragamo shoe collection, which had been overseen by Salvatore's other daughter, Fiamma Ferragamo until her death in November, also contains an element of surprise this season. A chain embedded in the heel of a pair of brown-satin evening pumps or leather ornamentation on classic rubber-soled suede and calfskin moccasins, priced from $180 to $275, looks very modern. Nevertheless, insists Giovanna Ferragamo, women probably shouldn't get too attached to any of these cheeky styles.
"For next spring, my collection is inspired by the Orient," she says, describing her loose, caftan-like mandarin jackets and cropped drawstring slacks worn with unobtrusive thongs and barefoot-looking sandals with low plexiglass heels.
You won't hear Blahnik pushing any barely-there styles this or any other season. The dashing, Milan-based shoemaker, whose boa-covered mules, two-tone strappy pumps and colorful rhinestone sandals have graced the feet of everyone from Anjelica Huston and Paloma Picasso to Sigourney Weaver, among others, has long been a believer in funky footwear that spans generations. As Madonna once noted of Blahnik's shoes: "They last longer than sex."
