Something asymmetrical is afoot in European shoe wear

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Business News GLOBAL REPORT

Something asymmetrical is afoot in European shoe wear

By Syl Tang, Financial Times

January 29, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-shoes29jan29,1,1502671.story

A new fashion trend is making great strides in Europe: wearing two

completely different shoes.

Style experts say wearing mismatched shoes, something cutting edge

shoe designers have experimented with for at least two decades, is

entering the mainstream.

A new Italian tourist brochure, for example, features fashionistas

in Rome wearing a red suede mule and a green patent pump, and a boot

and a dress shoe in matching brocade.

" What rule says the right has to be the same as the left shoe? " asks

Dalia Saliamonas, the marketing director of Spanish shoemaker

Camper. " It's a game: Each pair, each side can have its own

personality like a couple in a marriage. "

One of the label's creations features a map split across two shoes,

with one shoe showing an arrow marked " estoy aqui " (I am here).

Another pair has a properly laced shoe, while the other has laces

askew.

In fact, the non-matching pairs constitute a line in themselves —

Twins. The series has not only sold better and better but become

more and more avant-garde in look, the company says. The trend isn't

just catching on in Italy, a country that takes its shoes more

seriously than most. According to Paloma Marugan, director of the

consumer product department of Spain's trade commission,

asymmetrical pairs have been popular in the country's youth market

for a while.

Marugan thinks consumers are drawn to asymmetry for the imperfection

it mirrors in themselves.

" I think this is a very refreshing idea that has been very

successful in Europe because it somehow took us all away from a

very 'uniform' world and into a more human one that reminds us all

that we human beings are not exactly symmetrical, and that honoring

that is healthy and fun. "

Meanwhile, at prices directed more at grown-ups than the youth

market, artist Mihara Yasuhiro has done a series featuring two

completely different shoes for Converse. Famously conservative

Stubbs & Wootton — a favorite label of the golf and yacht club set —

offers loafers with different tops for the right and the left.

According to Commedes Garçons, themselves experts in mixing it up,

designers have a natural affinity for asymmetry. A representative

for Dover Street Market, Rei Kawakubo's London store, says the look

is rampant among all lines stocked: " This season, all is a mix.

Trousers with skirts, dresses with suit jackets, and so forth. "

At the end of the day, though, the question with mismatched shoes is

not whether designers love making them but whether people will love

wearing them.

Meghan Cleary, a shoe blogger and author of " The Perfect Fit, " says

someone who is intentionally wearing mismatched items is clearly not

beholden to regular style rules.

" When you get dressed, it's about the silhouette, about the lines

and the way it drapes on your body, " she said. " It takes someone who

really knows fashion to turn it on its head. It takes a courageous

fashion person because you have to know the silhouette before you

start to take away sections of the silhouette. "

Conroy, a spokeswoman for Brown Shoe, maker of Via Spiga,

Franco Sarto and Naturalizer, thinks the trend will sell, albeit in

a limited way.

" The retailers and designers do a terrific job of keeping consumers

aware of the trends each season, and individual expression is still

very much a trend. [Mismatched shoes] is one that is incredibly

individualistic. It definitely appeals to women trying to express

themselves. "

But Conroy has some skepticism. " Trends that are the longest lasting

are those that are open to interpretation by different people in

many different ways. The 1960s mod trend is a good example. It will

be interesting to see how long this one can last.

" There are only so many different ways you can interpret mismatched

shoes. "