SHOE COMPANY OF THE DAY: FRYE

I've been very impressed over the last few years with the transformation this brand went through (and continues to pull off). To be able to take a brand known for basically one thing (not unlike converse or doc martens) and expand it into a diverse range of women's shoes while still maintaining a certain rugged, Americana, craftsman-like sensibility is really a feat. Docs have tried to expand to more styles beyond the lace-up boot but they really don't stand on their own nearly as well as the assortment from Frye. A sampling...

I have a secret crush on so many of these shoes that if my other shoes knew they'd be jealous.

The color range is just right--not too solemn--throwing in some wide-open-country brights like yellow and sky blue.

The heels are substantial without seeming overly chunky, the hardware and studs are a little macho. The simplicity and finesse of the details strikes a nice balance.

SHOE DESIGN SCHOOLS/DEGREE PROGRAMS

FIDM

The one closest to home for me is FIDM in San Francisco. The sad part for me is that I'd love to just jump into a footwear-specific program but you basically have to do the full program in either the fashion design or product development majors to get to the advanced study level where you can then focus on footwear. It actually looks like a great program and if I could afford to be a full-time student it would probably take me a year and a half or two. Can't really do it right now. I think the product development major is the shorter route (or so the enrollment advisor said)

The Merchandise Product Development curriculum looks like this

and the footwear portion of the program looks like this

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London College of Fashion

There's actually a program i was really excited about here called Footwear Summer School which naturally is a much shorter program (though not really meant to be comprehensive it would be a great intro) 10 am to 4:30 pm for about a month you learn how to build shoes and theoretically create one of your own designs. The price isn't terrible either--about $3000 USD but then you'd have to figure out room and board I guess. Much more do-able as a working woman but still a bit of a stretch in terms of vacation time.

London College of Fashion: Footwear Summer School

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Polimoda

A Fashion School in Italy has a summer course as well and also has a 2.5 year intensive course in footwear that's an undergrad degree (They also have a masters degree in footwear!) so I'm assuming you can specialize from the outset and really what better place to lear about shoes than Italy?!? The summer course is also just a month long. Very tempting. and is less expensive than the London course. A little under $2000 if you book early.

Polimoda Summer Courses

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There's FIT, of course, if I want to move to New York. And their footwear curriculum looks like it's buried in the Accessories Design Major.

or De Montfort University in England which again is a three year program but looks like it has a big reputation and places a lot of graduates in the industry.

There are also non-university setting in which to learn shoemaking as a craft. I'll cover those in the next post.

A NEW ERA

Since this is one pile might as well start mixing the pile. God knows I bounce from one thing to another often enough that if I were to update every time my interests shift this thing would be all over the map. So lets just focus on the two or three things percolating in my brain right now.

Shoe Design
I've been living with the dawning realization that where I am now is not where my passion lies. It's not really a good time to start a business (without health insurance or a safety net) so I'm going to be parallel-tracking for a while I think. I really would love to explore shoe design. 

I love shoes and have my own ideas about what I'd like to see. I've been researching what it would take and there are some things out there but they're scattered across the globe and since I have this pesky job I can't pursue these education opportunities willy-nilly. Luckily I might have an opportunity to design for an existing shoe business of an old family friend. We'll see how that pans out.

Textile design
This sort of goes hand in hand with the shoe design to some degree. It also links up with my interest in fashion and fabric and handbags. I love fabric patterns that do something unexpected--especially tweaking a classic into something a little edgier and more sophisticated. The idea right now is to take inspiration from nature and develop stand-alone motifs that can also be interpreted into edge-to-edge patterns for different applications.

Ok that's two things. Which really is enough to focus on right now. I'm still doing research and gathering inspiration and analyzing what really grabs me in terms of design so I'll be putting the slush pile up here to some degree. I'm going to start by posting all the resources for shoe design that I've found.