Papershoes Heroine - Yoko Ono
PAPERSHOES TOP VALENTINES DAY MOVIES!
Wild at Heart
Manhattan
Sixteen Candles
Harold and Maude
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Single White Female
AMBER RIXON OF WINTER AND RIXON
Q: What is Winter and Rixon? Where does the name originate from?
A:Winter and Rixon is a label for women and in the near future for men. There are two collections per year plus one-off pieces that are added every so often.
Winter is my Grandfathers last name and Rixon is mine. My Grandfather Jack bought my first sewing machine and is an all round awesome person, so when I was thinking of a name for the label combining our surnames made sense.
Q: You talk about the film "Donnie Darko" being an inspiration to your current collection. What song from the "Donnie Darko" soundtrack best encapsulates the Winter and Rixon spirit?
A: The opening sequence is one of my favorite parts and that plays to "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen. Youth, the unknown, suburbia….
Q: What was the first garment you ever made?
A: drawstring dip dyed skirt
Q: Most of the pieces in this collection are made out of silk. Is there any special care or approach when working and designing with silk?
A: Design wise, no special approach. I choose a silk that best suits the style of the garment, or I find a silk I like and design a garment that would be suitable. For example the Taffeta, a smooth crisp strong silk for the windbreaker, the Crepe Georgette for the sheer styles, the Crepe De Chine for the light weight tailored dress.
Q: You lived in Portland Oregon for 6 months. How would you compare Portland fashion to Auckland fashion?
A: In my neighborhood it was kicks and hoods, overall I would say Pomanders are more relaxed….. although at the same time they have a lot more standout individuals.
Q: Each garment in your collection is available to be custom tailored, but all sales are done through your website. How does this service work?
A: This service will be available for the Winter collection, tailoring will be offered by appointment at our workroom in Auckland City. All fittings will be done by me and tailoring is all in-house.
Q: What is next for Winter and Rixon?
A: The Winter collection
Shop the Spring Summer collection from Winter and Rixon here.
Designer Amber Rixon wears Desert Print singlet and short from Winter and Rixon, with Minimarket Cut Out Oxford from Papershoes.
SALE
Papershoes.com sale starts today!
30 – 40% off purchases from some of our favourite brands including:
Acrobats of God, Bloch, Minimarket, Minnetonka, Rafia Chic and Swedish Hasbeens.
What better way to start the New Year than with new shoes?
Be in quick as sizes are limited!
OUR TOP HOLIDAY MOVIES!
Elf
A Charlie Brown Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Scrooged
White Christmas
A Christmas Story
Love Actually
Home Alone
The Muppet Christmas Carol
It's A Wonderful Life
Nightmare Before Christmas
Advice from the experts!
We asked Auckland shoe repair experts Gemmell's a few questions about basic shoe care, leather assessment when purchasing a shoe, and some other factoids we have always wanted to know.
Q: What is the best way to protect leather?
A: Just to keep the leather fed with a leather conditioner or polish will certainly prolong its life. If you do not do this, the leather will go dry and start to crack.
Q: How often should you clean leather shoes? And with what product?
A: You don’t have to necessarily clean your shoes frequently just keep them polished as in the above answer. Should you need to clean them, we recommend a product called Coxy Universal Cleaner.
Q:.How do I clean and protect suede and nubuck?
A: Cleaning suede is a little more difficult and you generally have to clean the whole shoe/boot. If you try to clean specific areas you will leave watermarks. Try using a suede brush first as this will remove a build up of dirt and grit then if needed you could use Coxy Universal Cleaner or Movi Drycleaner. After cleaning you would then spray evenly with Coxy Super Protector.
Q:When buying a pair of shoes or a handbag, what is best way to evaluate that you are paying for quality leather and not just buying into the cache of a brand?
A: Unless you have some sort of knowledge of or work with leather it is rather hard to determine what sort of quality you are paying for. Remember that just because the product is more expensive it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily of a higher quality.
Q:How often should I get my shoes resoled?
A: It depends how often you wear your shoes. If you wear them every day for work you will require resoling more frequently. We recommend having at least two pairs of shoes and alternating as you will get more wear and also allows the shoes to air out every couple of days and dry naturally.
If you are in Wellington!
Prospect: New Zealand Art Now
26 November 2011 - 12 February 2012 in the Entire Gallery
Concentrating on contemporary art, and the New Zealand artists producing some of the most thought provoking and confident work today, City Gallery Wellington will host the fourth in the series of Prospect: New Zealand Art Now.
Featuring works by Kate Newby, Ruth Buchanan, Sriwhana Spong, Fiona Connor, Eve Armstrong and more.
OLYMPIA LE-TAN HANDBAGS AND MINAUDIERES
Olympia Le-Tan is the daughter of French illustrator Pierre Le-Tan, she was born in London and raised in Paris.
The designer's creative background encompasses working in Chanel's design studio with Karl Lagerfeld at age 19, to the assistant designer at French fashion houses Balmain and Gilles Dufour.
Since September 2009, Ms. Le-Tan has been working on her own collection of handmade purses and clutches. Each handbag or Minaudiere (a small clutch) is inspired by artwork from first edition classic books.
Her first collection, "You can’t judge a book by its cover" was numbered and limited to 16 pieces, as that is Olympia's lucky number. In following collections, Olympia has taken new inspirations from milk packaging, and cookbooks.
Olympia Le-Tan is the kind of designer who has the ability to turn nostalgia, craft, and academia into a handbag that is sexy, cool, and original.
For her most recent collection, Le-Tan presented a short stop motion film “Mourir Auprès de Toi” (to die by your side) – produced with Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn, which tells a love story between Dracula’s Minas and Macbeth’s skeleton.
We included some of our favorites Olympia Le-Tan bags below.
View more of her collections here and “Mourir Auprès de Toi” here.
United Bamboo has arrived!
Santa is making his list, checking it twice; these shoes are naughty and nice!
New York label United Bamboo runway show.
Available here.
Available here.
OUR POP UP STORE IS OPEN!
The Papershoes.com Pop Up Store is now open, at Miss Crabb, 41 Ponsonby Road in Auckland.
Swing by the store before the end of Sunday 27th of November to check out all of our shoes in real life!
hours:
mon - sat: 10 - 6
sun: 11 - 4
Beautiful in store Papershoes installation by Andrew Barber.
Hopkinson Cundy
Meet Sarah Hopkinson, Owner of the Auckland based gallery Hopkinson Cundy.
If you haven't been to this off the beaten path gem, point yourself to Cross Street and look for a rolled up garage door. Inside you will find the stylish and charming Sarah, bringing you some of New Zealand's more interesting artists.
We caught up with Ms. Hopkison and asked her a few questions about her day-to-day approach to dressing.
Q. Owning your own gallery must involve a mix of being in the gallery during the day, and social engagements in the evenings. Do you find yourself dressing for day into night? Is that something you think about when buying a new addition for your wardrobe?
A. I do, yes. Usually I just change my shoes at 6pm.
Q. In terms of your personal style, are there two sides to Sarah? "Gallery Sarah" and "Weekend Sarah"?
A. I am not very good at dressing casually, so I try to avoid doing so in public. If I am doing something practical, like gardening or installing a new show at the gallery, then I revert to jeans (or jean shorts) and a big shirt.
Q. You are an avid basketball player. What are your favorite sneakers, and do you wear sneakers off the court?
A. Basketball is supposed to be my secret life… but at the moment I am wearing Kobe Zoom IVs on the court and Nike Lunarglide+2 (I just got a new pair in peach and grey) for running. I don’t wear sneakers unless I am exercising - I admire people that look good doing it, but I find it confusing.
Q. You travel quite a bit with your gallery. You just returned from London, where Hopkinson Cundy participated in a new art fair called Sunday. How do you pack for trip like this? Is there one shoe or clothing item that can carry you through the whole trip?
A. Art fairs, especially in Europe, have a very high concentration of very well dressed people. When I go away for work I always take outfits that I know I like and feel comfortable in, and lots of them. My suitcase is usually full of Miss Crabb dresses, a trusted pair of Karen Walker suit pants, and cotton t-shirts.
In terms of shoes - on my recent trip to London I relied heavily on a pair of Dieppa Restrepo Oxfords made of cork (beautiful, if not completely practical), and when I went to Basel in June it was my sky-high Hasbeen clogs in natural leather.
Q. What is the last pair of shoes you bought?
A. Minnetonka Kilty Moccasins from Papershoes.
Q. What font do you use on your business card?
A. The Hopkinson Cundy font was custom designed for us by Warren Olds. He built it around an old typewriter font from Fluxus pamphlets. It is called HC Medium and we use it in dark plum.
Hopkinson Cundy
1/1 Cross Street, Auckland.
Hours:
Tuesday–Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–3pm
Sarah Hopkinson, photographed in front of artist Ruth Buchanan's "Furniture, Plan, Rival Brain", the current exhibition at Hopkinson Cundy.
Sarah wears Miss Crabb and Swedish Hasbeens.
SIMILE
Simile is a new handmade, limited edition jewelry line, that is available online now!
Founded by London and New York based art director Elle Azhdari and designer Ji Jahng, the designs of Simile are inspired by street savvy women about town; creative, diverse, good-humored and whip-smart.
View and purchase the S/S '12 collection entitled ‘Dreams and Schemes’ here.
Simile boss woman, Elle Azhdari wearing Simile necklace.
Simile boss woman, Ji Jhang wearing Simile headpiece.
REMEMBERING LOULOU DE LA FALAISE
Louise Vava Lucia Henriette Le Bailly de La Falaise AKA “Loulou”, passed away this weekend in Paris.
Long before Kate Moss and Chloe Sevigny, there was Loulou de La Falaise.
Born in 1948 as the eldest child to Maxime Birley (model and muse to fashion designer Elsa Schiapperelli) and the French aristocrat Count Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise. Reportedly Photographer Cecile Beaton called Maxime Birley "the only truly chic Englishwoman." La Falaise would carry on to uphold the family tradition of inspiring designers and artists around the world.
After a brief marriage to an Irish count, La Falaise moved to New York in 1970. Prolific editor of Harper's Bazaar, Diana Vreeland organized an 8 page spread on Loulou's personal style photographed by Richard Avedon.
“Life has its stages and époques,” Loulou told Georgina Howell in 1992. “I seem to have hit places at the right moment, when they needed new blood. There was London in the sixties—Ossie Clark, Mick Jagger—and then there was New York: Tanguy and the first Metropolitan opening of the Warhol show . . . Andy and Marisol turning up in jeans all splattered with paint. The Halston girls . . . all of us foreigners, all equally at home in three cities.”
Amidst her bohemian life in New York and designing prints for the American label Halston, Loulou met iconic French designer Yves Saint Laurent. She moved to Paris and began a creative relationship that would span over thirty years, as his muse and accessory designer.
“It is fantastic to work beside Yves,” Loulou told Vogue after 20 years of collaboration, “We both believe fantasy is such a vital element of fashion. We tend to think of ourselves as gypsies who have just returned with a marvelous caravan of incredible finds from the exotic reaches of the earth. But we have to make the caravan ourselves. Our Orient is our imagination.”
“It’s not only what she does, it’s what she inspires,” noted Saint Laurent’s partner Pierre Bergé of the Yves–Loulou working dynamic. “She’s always dressed with a certain spirit of fantasy . . . she’s full of life, rebellious, and she shares his sense of humour.”
In 2002, La Falaise launched her own fashion business, designing ready-to-wear, costume-jewellry, and accessories, which retailed in the U.S. as well as two Loulou de La Falaise shops in Paris.
1977 at her wedding to Thadée Klossowski de Rola, son of the artist Balthus.
VERONICA CROCKFORD-POUND - NO MAGAZINE
We asked Director, Veronica Crockford-Pound a few questions about her latest video contribution to NO Magazine.
Q: How do you begin a project like this? What is your creative process when starting a fashion film?
A: I usually come up with my ideas through referencing a particular photograph/film/painting or bringing a whole pile of references together that I think work/don't work together in an interesting way. Often it's a collaborative idea, then it's more a conversation and throwing ideas back and forward.
Q: For this film, you collaborated with NO Magazine Fashion Editor Zara Mirkin. You have worked together on other projects, namely for New Zealand Musician Ruby Frost. How did you first begin working with each other?
A: Zara is a good friend of mine and we went to the same primary and high school. We began working together on the Ruby Frost videos and found that we loved collaborating together. Whenever I work with Zara the styling plays a leading role. I really like the way you can tell its her styling no matter what the inspiration.
Q: How important do you think the role of fashion is to a film?
A: It is part of what makes up the character and the image.
Q: What is your favorite film that exemplifies this?
A: Probably all of Godard's films!
Q: "A woman makes the clothes" vs. "clothes make the woman" where do you stand on this?
A: A woman makes the clothes... Definitely.
Shoe of the week!
Check out the Swedish Hasbeens, braided sky high toffel in natural. Featured as "Shoe of the Week" in New Zealand's Sunday Star Times.
View our range of Swedish Hasbeens here.
Swedish Hasbeens history and inspiration
The story
Her name was Anita and she was the hottest mum in all of southern Sweden in the 1970’s. While smoking Camel's she screamed at her kids until her curlers fell out and just looked fabulous in her white high-heeled clogs.
One summer day in 2006 we found the shoes she wore (300 pairs of red, white and black beautiful clogs from the 70’s) in the basement of an old clog factory in the neighboring village and brought them to Stockholm. So for all these people that shared our love for Anita’s wooden shoes and for ourselves we started Swedish Hasbeens.
Our ambition is to continue to release more incoherent and fun shoes and stuff inspired by Hasbeens that once ruled the planet.
The Hasbeens toffels, bags and belts are based on original 70’s models and are made of ecologically prepared natural grain leather since it’s the most beautiful and the highest quality at the same time as it’s environmentally friendly.
They are still handmade with respect for people and the environment in the old traditional way, and in small factories that have made shoes for decades. Our production methods and material are kind to nature and people. Happy toffels make happy people.
View our range of Swedish Hasbeens here.
Spring/Summer Campaign
Spring/Summer Campaign
Spring/Summer Campaign
BRAIDED SKY HIGH TOFFEL - Natural.
BRAIDED SKY HIGH TOFFEL - Red.
BRAIDED SKY HIGH TOFFEL - Navy.
Autumn/Winter Campaign
T-STRAP SKY HIGH TOFFEL - Natural.
T-STRAP SKY HIGH TOFFEL - Black.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to our friends at Special Problems for winning the NZ On Air Best Music Video, at last nights New Zealand Music Awards.
Check out the winning video they made for "Punching in a Dream" by The Naked and Famous.
View more of Special Problems awesome work here.
Guy Bourdin for Charles Jourdan
French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin was a visionary whose images set the stage for a new kind of fashion photography.
A protégé to Surrealist photographer Man Ray in the 1950's, Bourdin went on to question boundaries with his photography throughout the 1970's and 80's. He has left us with a body of work that is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.
Mr. Bourdin worked for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Issey Miyake, Emanuel Ungaro, Gianni Versace, Loewe, Pentax and Bloomingdale's.
Bourdin's most notorious images came from the ad campaign's he photographed for legendary shoe designer Charles Jourdan.
To make a comparison, Charles Jourdan was the Christian Louboutin of the 70’s and 80's. Every woman from Studio 54 in New York, to the Cafe Flore in Paris was wearing his shoes, notably with their favorite YSL or Halston gowns.
We have put together a selection of our favorite images Guy Bourdin created for Charles Jourdan that continue to inspire us.
More of Bourdin's work can be viewed here.
Carrie visits the Vogue shoe closet.
SATC - Carrie goes to the Vogue shoe closet! from papershoes on Vimeo.
SOCKS AND SANDALS FOR SPRING!
There was a time if you put the word "socks" next to "sandals", images of all-terrain hiking sandals with dirty wool socks came to mind.
The time has come to replace that image with these beautiful sock and sandal combo's, pictured below.
From runway collections, to fashionistas on the street, this fashion faux pas has been re-invented for the greater good.
If you are aching to switch your winter shoes for your summer ones but the weather is not supporting that desire, we have a great selection of socks on our site.
United Bamboo coming soon!
In a matter of weeks, Papershoes will be receiving United Bamboo!!
United Bamboo designers Thuy Pham and Miho Aoki created a beautiful menswear inspired collection.
The shoes from the collection are Italian made brown penny loafers and black buckled brogues, with a wooden stacked heel and platform.
View the entire show here
We are counting down the days!
Brown penny loafer with wooden heel.
Black buckled brogue with wooden heel.
Everything is better in pairs!
Permanent Style interview with Herme's artisan
Permanent Style.co.uk conducts an interesting interview with Claire Marie, a classicly trained leather artisan for French luxury label Hermes.
Hermès: Interiew, Claire Marie
Claire Marie is the artisan in the Bond Street branch of Hermès. It is her job to make alterations and repairs to client’s belts, bags and other leather accessories. As reported in a previous post in this series, she is also a proficient bag maker herself. Permanent Style quizzes her on the Hermès training and why she enjoys working in the London store after her Paris workshop experience.
Photography:Andy Barnham
Papershoes buying trip @ NY Fashion Week
View the photo diary from our recent trip to New York Fashion Week.
It is already time for Papershoes to place orders, for our Autumn/Winter 2012 collection!
The fashion world follows the season's of the Northern Hemisphere. Although, we were looking for shoes for our A/W, we saw many beautiful sandals and strappy heels for their S/S.
In addition to attending the fashion week runway shows, we went to a few different shoe trade shows. These trade shows bring small and independent labels from all over the world. One show had over 250 shoe designers in one room!
Enjoy!
This weekend in Wellington.
Check out fellow Papershoes friend Nick Austin's show at Peter McLeavey Gallery in Wellington.
Nick Austin: Interesting Chewing Gum
Details here
Nick Austin
Slow Motion, 2010
Acrylic on denim
New Zealand Herald Interview with Papershoes.
Check out Zoe Walker's New Zealand Herald interview with Papershoes, by clicking here
Frustration when shoe-hunting inspired three friends to launch an online footwear store.
Helen Gould, Amber Easby and Alexis Brooks are the women behind the footwear-focused e-store, which will stock a range of international brands not yet readily available in New Zealand, with free shipping and no pesky duty costs.
Gould and Easby are co-directors of the site, who met while working together at K Rd's Bunny Boutique a few years back. Easby, who co-owns D.O.C Bar with her husband, met Brooks while they were both living in London before moving to New York - where Brooks has again been recently for New York Fashion Week and the next round of buying appointments. The trio now live in Auckland. They talk us through their new venture.
