SHOE DESIGNER OF THE DAY: CHIE MIHARA

Ok. i cannot possibly express how much I love Chie Mihara shoes. They're pretty much in the perfect sweet spot of gorgeous, well crafted, not-too-high heeled, and edgy without being too wacky. These are the perfect work-appropriate shoes for creative professionals because they're subtle enough to fit into a corporate environment but still have a lot of personality.

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.