Shoe: Contemporary Footwear 

by Inspiring Designers 

Olivier Dupon

I LOVE a good coffee table book, I mean who doesn't? This book ticks all the boxes, it covers 32 designers that are currently working world wide and the pages are full with sketches, swatches, illustrations and samples of the very shoes that have graced our phone screens (at some point) scrolling through Instagram. I could flick through the pages for hours, the descriptions compliment the pages perfectly; there is just the right amount of text - these books are all about the imagery and why the hell not when they feature such beautiful shoes. Personally, this book has been an eye opener and has certainly inspired me with design and if you're not a designer this book is perfect for guess what? a coffee table (ha!) so you can sit and adore shoes to your hearts content. The book is available on Amazon at £43.20 - perfect for a christmas gift or a stocking filler.

Fashionary

Shoe Design - A Handbook for Footwear Designers

So a couple weeks ago, Fashionary the go to for fashion designer sketch books released a Shoe Design handbook which goes in depth about the anatomy of a shoe including design details, footwear styles and pattern making - basically everything under the sun about footwear. It takes 3 days to get to you (all the way from Hong kong) and its a hardback book, A4 in size so its fully packed with information and help on designing. Definitely a must for budding footwear designers!

£26 - not including delivery charges

W - www.fashionary.org

F - Fashionary

T - @fashionarybook

I - @fashionary

SHOES 

PLEASURE AND PAIN

V&A

So a couple weeks back my lovely boss treated the ICMS team to the Shoes Pleasure and Pain exhibition at the V&A - it was nothing short of inspiring. The collection was pretty amazing and the short films were fab. The most memorable part of the exhibition was watching the short films on how 5 renowned designers (Manolo Blahnik, Sandra Choi of Jimmy Choo, Caroline Groves, Marc Hare and Christian Louboutin) within the footwear industry deal with the specific elements of the design process. Most of their responses within this 12 minute clip explored in my opinion the ever changing relationships with technology, either with design (using CAD as to the old fashioned way of using pen and paper) or even the manufacturing process. Caroline Groves in particular relished in the fact that bespoke shoe making allowed her to take complete control of the making process using only a sewing machine in her kitchen to complete a beautifully custom made pair of shoes. In comparison other designers almost felt eternally indebted to their manufactures and worked meticulously together to recreate the exact design that was initially conceived from a sketch or CAD design. The exhibition brought together all of these components, including a brief history in footwear all the way to shoes in the present, that have completely changed the way shoes have been designed and made.

V&A Museum

£12 entry

South Kensington Tube Station

www.vam.ac.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum

@V_and_A

@vamuseum