Manolo Blahnik 

New Shoes 

So this book, I received on Christmas day and has given me hours and hours of inspiration, and pleasure. I love going to this book for the intricate details, and since I'm a shoe maker and not solely a designer I find it increasingly difficult to get my ideas onto paper because my head is already figuring out how to make them with the tools I have around me. BUT, when I do have to design which is becoming  a necessity with the collaboration I'm working on, conveying ideas and designs is so very important. This is the book i turn to, so for all my readers who are designers I 100% recommend this book, make it your next purchase and notice your designs go from 0-100 REAL QUICK! ;)

@shoesinart

Ive always been an avid art follower, so I hit a gold mine when I came across Shoes in Art, an instagram account dedicated to bringing you footwear depicted from various pieces of art. The instagram account does all the talking! so Im going to keep this post short and sweet so you can head over to Insta to check them out. As most shoe designers know, silhouettes of footwear very rarely change (its all be done and seen before) much like fashion, footwear styles are always recycled adapted to the new modern age. The footwear in most of the art works have definitely come around in fashion a number of times so footwear designers this may be something you can stick in the inspiration bank.

Silvia Fado

Since deciding to leave any possible career in architecture behind it has been rearing its head every so often just to let me know its here to stay and will forever be part of my academic history. Amazingly it has cropped up in the most interesting of areas - footwear. I have a major soft spot for designs and designers/architects that have dabbled in footwear and Silvia Fado is just that; hugely inspired by architecture and knitwear and passionate about footwear.

Fado's latest collection 'Kinetic Traces' looks at the way the body moves, along with fashion design and high performance sports footwear. With fashion footwear often pretty to look at but not so comfy to wear Fado is exploring the relationship between functional and high end fashion footwear. Her designs are fantastic and have some great elements that really make you want to look closer at the design. Fado graduated at London college of fashion so for all you budding footwear designers Fado is a great example of what you could accomplish following a career in footwear.

W - www.silviafado.com

F - Silvia Fado

I - @silviafado_shoes