I love how these boots turned out that I designed! Back in October I took an inspiration trip to London and this was one of the groups I designed after being inspired on that trip. I saw a lot of vintage shoes, and an obvious rewind back to the 1980’s influence. I was determined to find a fresher, more modern approach to an update, still respecting the popularity of the 1980’s trend, but with a more wearable silhoutte and more modern colors and materials. I’m so excited they turned out as I envisioned! I like the varying heights. And I think the microsuede and faux leather materials look great in the neutral greys, fresh golds, and deep indigo blues I chose. Yay! A project I can be proud of, because I would wear these! Now let’s hope somebody buys them, so they can make it to retail! We shall see!

It’s time to work on Spring and Summer shoes! Great! I’m ready to be done with the past 6 months of winter footwear, I’ve done so many slippers and boots that I don’t even want to shop for or wear them even though it’s winter. So now, I’m busy working on a big spring/summer collection. It’s ironic, to be desigining peep-toes and sandals, when it was 9 degrees out the other morning. But this is the way the fashion cycle works. You’re always designing a year ahead and in the wrong season. Anyway, I’m starting to see more samples come back from the factory of shoes I designed back in November, cute stuff that I had almost all but forgotton about. Things move so fast in the industry, it’s one of the things I don’t really like. You have to do so much, and do it fast, that sometimes you catch your breath, look down, and wonder if any of it really got all of your attention or if you just pushed it through to move on to the next thing. I admit though, it’s good for me to move a little faster because we all know, how much I really like to take my sweet time. I like to take my time with everything, if there were no clocks in the world, that would be fine with me.

I have been working on updating my portfolio, which is an overwheming but neccesary task. I have many different pieces of work that do not relate, and many things that do relate. And the real objective is to highlight the best work. But I feel I’ve got to include the footwear, art, drawing, and trend presentations I’ve worked on, so I want a neutral page layout that can give the viewer something continuous to ground all the work. So I’ve been working with a layout that allows me to group things that go together, so each page you know where to look no matter how unrelated the page before was. Anyway, I’ve been staying up late and working on this project, and I still have more to do, but at least I seem to have a flow now.

It’s been so cold here in NYC, 28 degrees. I am wearing 3 pairs of socks at night. Brrrr. Definitely wintertime now! I know I talk about the weather a lot, but that is because when I leave the house, I am starting a day full of walking in the elements. No car to hop into, and our freaky climate is strange, you don’t want to be caught out in 70 degree weather with your down coat, or much worse, vice versa. Anyhow, I ate some delicious sweet potato pureed soup at Metro cafe today. It made coming into the city and into the office, completely worth it. Just to eat that soup. I also bought some really cool fabric for work for some upcoming shoes. Shopping, eating, and freezing. That’s me!

Remember these boots I designed back in October? The prototypes are back from the factory.
Cute! Although they did not execute what was supposed to be an olive green very well, the rest look pretty good. So this is a boot I designed based on the inspiration I got while shopping in London. Now we have the prototype, and next, sales will try to sell it to various buyers who would then stock it in their stores for next season. It would be exciting to see this little boot make it the whole lifespan… to walk in and see it in the stores, and even better, spot it on somebody walking by! We shall see!

I took about 2 weeks off from working and it was great, I really needed it. It sucks to not have “paid” holidays off anymore, but it is great to be your own boss and not worry about reporting to the man… Anyway, I’m back to work and have been busy this week. During the days I’m working on directing, constructing, photographing producing (4) very large 7′ x 3′ presentation boards for a client who is having a big meeting with a very large potential account. I really like putting together presentation boards. One minute you’re shopping for fabric and fancy paper and trims. Next you’re photographing shoes, or doing CAD’s for the boards. Or you’re spray mounting and cutting out all the pieces (reminds me of art class.) Then you’re rearranging everything and editing and throwing stuff out and adding stuff back in. It’s basically a 3-D presentation for footwear concepts and themes in the hopes that the buyers from such big company will place orders for future footwear seasons. I’ll shoot some photos of the whole thing before I leave the job. It’s truly amazing to know that I am working on something that will be done in a week or so, and then it’s on to something else! And it’s great to be up and about and not sitting behind a desk all day.

For another client, I’m working on kids slipper designs. Obviously, this is not technical footwear, but it does allow me to put together cutesy decorative stuff and you know I love that! I hope the infants that wear these slippers will like looking down at these little monkey faces I drew that will be stitched onto the top of their booties! If not, maybe they will like the chick hatching from it’s egg, or perhaps a little bear…

It is 20 degrees today. Very cold, and very winter-like. It was a nice very mild fall here in NYC but now it’s time for Winter, no doubt about it. And how about some warm cozy slippers to go with your winter! Slippers and boots are fun to design, soon it will be time to work on flip flops and sandals, and since I admit, I’m partial to the cooler weather, I like doing the winter stuff the most. There is nothing about the cold weather that makes me absolutely insane. Whereas stick me in the middle of a stinky humid summer, and I do feel like I have to work extra hard to keep my cool, both mentally and physically.

These are more rubber wellington rainboots going into production that I designed. They feature a tweed fabric collar with lacing in the back. We shall see how the factory works it out, and hopefully they turn out well! Get it… well… wellingtons… haha.

Yay! These wellington rainboots are going into production! I can’t wait to see the prototypes of these prints I worked on! I took inspiration from the old CHP (Cailfornia Highway Patrol) logo and some mod 1950’s shapes. Don’t ask me about the connection, it just seemed right to me at the time. Well the client liked it anyway, so I don’t have to tell them of my wierd inspirational source, right?

sandal

Originally uploaded by FunCupcake.

I am going to take a little break from frequent posting as I transition from my old job (today is my last day) and start my new projects (which also, without meaning for them too, start tomorrow) and also enjoy spending time with Salvi who is in NYC this week. So you will have to look at one of these old shoe drawings for now, think you can handle it? See you next week! xoxo

I designed this outsole, when we were working on nautical-themed designs. The lines and anchor would be recessed and when you walk, like in semi-hard sand on your nautical adventure, your shoe would leave this impression behind. I like it and if I had my own footwear line, I would put it in. Hell, I would do an entire line based on nautical loveliness. Not preppy nautical, mind you. But some sort of vacation, classic, 1940’s somethine or rather.

Anyhow, people are always asking to see the footwear I design. And I would show you more footwear-related design, but as you might imagine I have been under strict contract to protect the proprietary design I do for the company I work(ed) for, and this is the dilemma. We work on footwear for upcoming seasons, and really it would be questionable for me to post any of these designs before they are produced, which is sometimes half a year to a year later. So let’s say a shoe that I design makes it all the way to retail. Well it’s a long road to it’s production. And that little shoe sometimes has a short lifespan (1/2 the time it doesn’t even make it all the way to production for a number of reasons.) The process is something like this; First, a protoype is made, usually in one color/material, then the shoe is fit tested and visually corrected at the factory by our fit technicians and fit test model (yes, there are perfect size 6 feet getting paid to try on shoes all day) and sometimes design also visually corrects the prototype here in the design office. Based off of our corrections on that prototype, a pair of samples are then made in a variety of colors and materials. Then we “merchandise” the line and drop what didn’t execute well, and maybe add some things based on what is working. We shuffle things around and refine the line. Then we take our samples to a big shoe show and buyers can purchase the shoes to retail in their stores. We often design almost twice the amount of shoes that actually make it to production. Half of this, sometimes more, is dropped along the way, either because the factory cannot make it to look as it should, the pricing is too high on the components, it doesn’t merchandise or fit well with the rest of the line, or simply, we find something more relevant to take it’s place.

So here’s the dilemma. First, the designs I design aren’t technically or legally”mine” to show. Second, they could be copied before they even hit retail if I were to divulge design details. But I always work on things paralelling what I am doing on work, so I can reveal my interpretation of things, that I did outside of work, which holds no liability. Like the anchor outsole design! It’s mine! All mine!