Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Ugh. Snow.

A foot of it so far in the last week and a half, and they're predicting another four inches tonight.

Now, four inches is a great heel height, but I'm getting a little sick of the white stuff. Or more exactly, I'm getting a little sick of risking my decent health and unbroken bones in walking in it and the ice that lies underneath it.

Here's to the end of this mini-Ice Age in Vancouver so I can once again wear something other than sneakers or boots with treads.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Floors

Long time no post, I know.

Just a little note: be wary of shiny floors, gals. I have managed to not fall on the shiny polished tile floor in part of my school, but I always have to literally watch my step and my balance when I walk on it in stilettos.

Gotta love anything with one of those low-pile office carpets, though. I think those are the best.

Not much else to report.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Standing in Heels

A friend posted this link somewhere:

When a Man Wears Heels - The Times online

It garnered the following response from me:

On Friday night I was organizing a couple of classmates to help me film a friend's concert. One of them had clearly never been in a nightclub before and squawked about many things including, "But those girls - they're just going to stand all night and watch the bands?"

Yes, that's the idea.

"But they're wearing heels!!"

Yes. (I don't think she's ever worn anything other than sneakers.)

And then I patiently explained the concept that standing in heels, even for a whole evening, isn't a big deal if that's what you're used to doing. Depends on the actual pair of shoes - I have some I could stand in all day and others I can use only as photo props. I find heel height isn't the only factor to consider, either.

"But it'll be their death!"

Oh, quit being so damn melodramatic.

I might as well have been explaining the importance of the polar ice caps to an iguana. An iguana might at least look at me and pretend to listen on the off-chance there might be a treat in it for the iguana. (Or at least when I had a iguana she used to pretend to listen to me. Other iguanas might not be so patient or interested, so your results may vary.)

This fellow reminds me of that same wide-eyed bewilderment. But at least he seemed to clue in at the end that there are benefits. And if he bothered to try a couple of different styles or even similar styles from different brand, he might have discovered that some stilettos are actually rather comfortable to wear all day.

Or all night as the case might be.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

On cycling

Cycling of fashion, that is.

So, I guess gladiator sandals are in yet again. It seems to me this must be the fourth or fifth time they've been 'in' since I was sort of paying attention to fashion. I'm almost starting to feel old - almost.

That's the whole point of the system, though - make you feel old if you don't jump in with it.

For the record, my reason for skipping gladiators this time around is that I'm in school full time and tending to wear jeans or trousers, and gladiators look like shit with any hemlines that reach the ankles. That and I spend too much time sitting, which can make fluid retention a problem and fluid retention and straps don't mix.

I also noticed in the August issue of Fashion Magazine that the almond toe is out for fall. It's all back to pointy toes (ie, winklepickers). Suits me fine, but I thought it rather cute since whenever the almond toes started coming in again (for the fourth or fifth time that I can recall) it wasn't so long ago and it was that pointed toes were sooooooooo passé (for the fourth or fifth time).

But hey, the real king is style as opposed to fashion. Use what looks the best, whether it's fashionable or not.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Jessica Simpson

She may not know if tuna is a chicken or a fish, but the girl's got some great shoe designs.

(Yes, I know she doesn't lift a finger to design any of them.)

I finally broke down and bought a pair last week: Black leather. Peep toe. Four inch stacked heel, what I'd call semi-stiletto as they're a bit chunkier than usual but not really chunky heels. Half inch platform sole. On sale.

I've seen some of her shoes before at Winners and other places, but either the designs didn't really impress me or they didn't have any in my size or they weren't on sale. Finally the stars all lined up and I got a pair.

Jessica Simpson Shoes

Friday, July 18, 2008

A General Rule of Thumb

Today I had some running around to do downtown and I took the bus. As we pulled up to the stop at Broadway and Granville, I saw a woman wearing a great pair of black and tan peep-toe pumps, probably about a 4" heel.

What really caught my eye, however, was the white and red sticker on the sole of the arch. Instantly I could tell she bought them at Winners (white sticker) and on clearance (red sticker).

Now, I buy most of my shoes there too, and I love a clearance price as much as the next gal, but whatever happened to peeling that sticker off when you get them home? Hmm?

Just a general rule - the underside of that arch will draw attention to itself if there's anything bright on it. Some designers like Laboutin and Betsey Johnson take advantage of this real estate and make you look through using brightly colored or patterned soles. This is good. Having attention drawn there by the price and sale stickers is not good.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Naughty Monkey Pics

As promised, some close-ups of those Naughty Monkey pumps. (I call them my Canada Day pumps because of the red and white houndstooth pattern.)




Thursday, June 26, 2008

New Stuff

First up: new shoes!

On my way into school today, I had a hunch that I might get lucky if I popped by Shoe Warehouse at Lansdowne Mall. As usual, the hunch was right. I found a great pair of red and white rounded toe pumps by Naughty Monkey. They're cute on the outside, but I think the really neat part of them is the inside embroidery and details. And they were on sale for about 60% off!

I'll have a couple of photos up by next week.

Site progress

I'll be building the site over the next term, probably going for some Flash elements as well as CSS and XHTML.

In the meantime I am working on the structure and the content of the site. I will be adding an article section that will cover tips and tricks for high heels (fit, walking in them, etc.), histories of different kinds of shoes and heels, and I'll probably also have some other articles as I think of them. Probably the articles section will go live before the rest of the site, but I haven't decided yet.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Perfect Summer Tote




Just picked this beauty up at a local supermarket for dirt cheap. It's big enough to pack my laptop accessories in for school (or to take my stack of library books, including Blahnik by Boman, back from whence they came). I love the charming all-over shoe print, though with the top down view it's hard to tell if those are supposed to be heels or flats. Probably flats, as the proportions look off for high heels.

About the only quibble I could have is that I'd prefer a black background similar to some high heel themed quilting fabric I found last year, but hey - nothing's perfect.

Oh, and another shoe-related trinket for a later date: Shoe charm from Tiffany. A little beyond my current budget, but that will change soon enough. (Actually, in case the link changes, I stuck the screenshot below).

Monday, June 9, 2008

Cool Window Display

In downtown Vancouver, on the north side of Georgia Street between Seymour and Richards, there is a little shop with several turntables in the window display and three stilettos on each going around and around. It's a bit of a disco vibe by the looks of it.

I think the place is called Vetrina Moda. In any case, check out the display if you have a chance, it's really neat.

(Unfortunately, I have one of those crappy camera-free cell phones, so no pics.)

Friday, June 6, 2008

Attn: Canadian heel fans!

Check your TV listings tomorrow (June 7th, 2008) for CBC Newsworld's reairing of the documentary "High Heel Confidential."

Here in Vancouver it looks like it will air at 10:00pm PST on channel 26.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Red Steve Madden heels shoot

Lo and behold, I forgot to mention anything about the last shoot I did!

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to shooting the Steven Madden peep toe heels I had mentioned acquiring previously.

Shooting against a black fleece background, I lit the shoes with one of my studio hotlights and opened my camera's aperture wide open to get that nice narrow focal plane I like so much for highlighting details.

I took about fifty shots during that session and if memory serves, five turned out well enough to post on Flickr. Maybe one or two will be included in the final Rhett Foxx site.

In the meantime, here's just one of them to whet your appetite.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Poster Design




This week, we had a poster assignment for our Photoshop class. I used this assignment as an opportunity to design this poster for rhettfoxx.com.

Inspired by the name of this blog, I initially thought I would go with a treasure map motif, but found this getting to be too busy when I was doing the production.

Some of my first real photographic experience was shooting with Polaroids, and so I decided to add some Polaroid-sized masks to the photos to reference that. Naturally, I had an old song by one of my favorite bands bouncing around my head the rest of the day. ("Gentlemen Take Polaroids" by Japan)

This determined the overall size, as I wanted the Polaroids to print at the actual size of 3.5 x 4.5". The closest available standard poster size that would accommodate four Polaroids with adequate room for other elements and white space turned out to be 18 x 24".

While the first sketches involved a dotted line path, akin to the old Family Circle comics where one of the kids is wandering around the neighborhood, I soon hit on the idea of footprints instead. From there, it was obvious to go for high heeled footprints. Of course, individual layers of teeny footprints quickly add up to drive me nuts...

After playing with the type, I decided to leave just the short captions on the Polaroids and the URL in the huge font. I tried several placements of a shorter blurb telling just a bit more about the site, but wherever I placed it in whatever size, it wrecked the unity of the design. I figure the visual elements hit a good balance of information and intrigue to entice viewers into the site.

I may revisit this design in next term's Flash course to see about making it into an interactive splash page for the site.

Monday, May 12, 2008

On high heels and cars...

Note to self: when planning to wear heels somewhere, but driving there in flats, remember that if you want to swap shoes discreetly before exiting the vehicle, the heels can't have ankle straps.

Otherwise the steering wheel is in the way and it requires the stand beside car, put foot on driver's seat and buckle straps that way method, which of course risks flashing entirely too much thigh and ass if wearing a full skirt. Or walking in flats into a building and finding a bathroom for the switch.

My gentleman readers may of course hope I forget this little rule of thumb, should they ever meet me in person. ;D

(Clearly, this is Day 1 of remembering one of my New Year's resolutions about wearing skirts and heels out and about a little more often.)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

New index pic


Well, we have our first photographic addition to rhettfoxx.com in the form of a tinted scan of a shot I took sometime in early 2007. Originally shot on 35mm HP5+ with my old Pentax MX, this shot was a do-it-yourself endeavor all the way. I was taking classes at Focal Point at the time and so I took this as a still life for the basic film photography course and developed and printed it myself as part of my homework for the basic darkroom class (gotta love it when you're allowed to double dip!). I think it's printed on Ilford Cool White RC paper - if memory serves, this was before I discovered that Lens and Shutter still had the remnants of a horde of AGFA paper (RIP AGFA, we all miss you dearly).

The set-up was quite simple, being shot in the olden days before I bought any studio hot lights. I have an east facing window that I set up a little table in front of one sunny midday and I covered it with three metres of black satin from my overly large sewing stash and set up the heels on that.

The pink tint was added tonight in Photoshop as the original black and white version, while just lovely on its own and on FlickR, was far too harsh compared to the warm colors on my index page.

I have probably too many pairs of silver heels for some reason. Sometimes I think it has to do with a story I remember reading from when I was a little kid, about a princess using a magic scroll to escape through some labyrinthine fortress and she wore a pair of silver slippers. (I wish I remember the book's name.) Other times I think that's over-analyzing it too much and it's just related to my general preference for silver metallics over gold. In any case I think I have three pairs of silver heels at this time (one pair of mule sandals by Penny Loves Kenny, these pumps by Chinese Laundry, and a pair of mary-jane-like heels with X-straps whose manufacturer escapes me at the moment) and one pair of Steve Madden silver flats. Silver heels are always guaranteed to catch my eye and tempt me.

There are about three or four good shots of these in various configurations from that day, and this is the shot that has proven the most popular on my Flickr page. To date it's received 318 views and been favorited twice - not bad considering I don't really promote my work on Flickr and I rarely even post photos on any of the groups I belong to there. Only three of my shots surpass this total, two of which are other high heel shots. The third, inexplicably, is a shot of a transvestite in a minidress and neon pink thigh-high fishnet stockings from last August's Pride Parade here in Vancouver. (Not even the best transvestite shot I took that day. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Interestingly, my black and white shots are far more popular than my color high heel shots. I suppose despite - or maybe because of - the barrage of full-color images we stew in every day, there is still something magical about black and white photography.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

First addition to rhettfoxx.com

Well, it's not much, just a little icon, but I have made my first real update to rhettfoxx.com. It's the little R icon in the tab and address bar. Not much, but it'll do for now.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Coming soon: rhettfoxx.com

Well, looks like everything's going just ducky at DreamHost. I have registered rhettfoxx.com and will soon begin to populate it with content.

So you won't have to look at my pretty pink "under construction" page for too long. I promise.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Site structure set

Whilst waiting for my delicious burger at the campus pub this evening, I finalized (more or less) the structure of the Rhett Foxx site I'll be building soon.

Aside from the usual sections to be expected, I will organize the site by color.

But in the interests of being a tease, I won't reveal more than that. Yet.

Latest acquisition



This is a screen capture from stevemadden.com of the closest image on the site to my latest hunting trophy. As with so many things, I acquired them at Winners for under fifty bucks.

I suppose this means I can no longer bitch about not having a great pair of red heels, huh? Not so fast. I merely have a great pair of open-toe mary jane red heels. The hunt continues.

Now, I did say this blog is more related to high heel photography, and as such, I will be finding some time this weekend to take some artsy shots of these to share with you soon. I suspect it will be a good time for me to set up a new Flickr account just related to this project and this blog.

Anatomy of a classic from Style.com

See slideshow here.

It's a neat little summary of high heeled history. A little simplistic, though.

Naturally my favorites are those "sex pumps." Too bad they picked such a crappy shot of Dita von Teese, though.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Dictionary.com

How strange. I checked dictionary.com to ensure I had the right plural form (is it "stilettos" or "stilettoes"? Both, apparently.) only to find that only one of the references mentions high heels. (And only in passing. The term "stiletto heel" first came into being in 1953.)

Funny - it's a very common term wth a 55 year history. If memory serves it probably first referred to a specific brand called Paris Points.

Are the dictionaries that far behind the times? How long did it take them to add "blog"? Or "website"? Yet most don't mention stiletto in the sense of a high heel.

Check it out for yourself: Dictionary.com: Stiletto

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Discontinued: No wonder! (A Rhett Foxx Rant)


Usually I prefer to focus on the pleasantries of life: there are many other who bitch and moan continually. And as mistress of my own dominion, I find it's a more pleasant dominion if I direct my attention to things I want more of.

With that said, there are some things that are too strange to pass up the opportunity to comment on. Like the weird sculptural heels on this pair of platform mules from The Highest Heel. Now, they stock many perfectly lovely (if difficult to walk in) shoes, and I even own a couple of pairs, and it must be noted that I did find these whilst browsing their "Discontinued and Clear Out" section. But I must ask, even at a discounted price, who on earth would wear these?

We wear heels to accentuate our figures. A good pair of heels lengthens the leg line and adds a grace and lightness to our movements (well, OK - provided that a gal knows how to swagger in them). These give no such benefits, save perhaps the leg lengthening illusion. The beads ruin the line of the heel, an effect which is even worse in the black version. Whether acrylic platforms allow for grace of movement or not is an ongoing debate, but I can't see any possible grace to tottering in these.


On the other hand, they're still nowhere near as hideous as some of the heels the haute couture fashion houses thought we'd be dumb enough to buy last season. Or am I the only one who felt nauseous when seeing this page from one of the fashion rags last fall? (Not everything on that page was bad, but those Balenciaga sandals in the top left seemed to be in every magazine as an exemplar of good trends. Blech - at best they remind me of elementary school arts and crafts projects like melting crayons to make misshapen candles.)

I was less than impressed to discover that the usually tasteful Steve Madden is even making a version of those: Why, Steve? WHY?!?

There. The rant du jour is over.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Quest Begins

Hello everyone! As a brief teaser intro, I'll just say that I'm a photography and stiletto fanatic. I've decided to combine those two passions. Over the next few weeks you can expect to see this blog grow as I work on the design and crafting of a website devoted to the dissemination of some of my photography in both print and digital form. I'll also add some musings on both topics.

You'll probably also hear plenty about my quest to fill my closet with even more examples of fabulous stilettos to wear and photograph.

'Til then, stay tuned.