Imelda and some phone shews.

Right. It's officially time for those of you who are still flogging the dead horse obsession that is those Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremony buckle boots to let them go. They were undoubtedly fabulous, yes yes, but now they - and their offspring, some better looking than others - are as overwrought as an e-shopper on the OutNet with a slow connection during $1 sale day. In any case, here are six pairs of shoes I'd love to own right now:

Finsk's geometric wedge platform bootie - in any of the colourways. Questions have been raised before about the actual wearability of this design, and whether they are in fact, more of a 'show' piece rather than a 'wear' piece. For those of you that have the cash and the restraint to purchase shoes as one would invest in art and never wear them, I can personally testify that these are very wearable and very comfortable. Here's one of their newest; though the original black pony hair version will always hold a special place in my dream shoe closet.

Finsk

These awesome Burberry Prorsum cut out platform sandals are kind of Spice Girl, kind of high heeled Doc Marten, kind of anime school girl on steroids and with some grey marle socks pulled up or slouching down your calves, utterly, effortlessly cool. I bet I could easily run away from any mischief I'd leave behind in these babies, with their triple stacked platform and sturdy stacked heels.

Burberry Prorsum

LD Tuttle has been on the rise and rise in the last year or so, becoming a favourite amongst many of the fashwan bloggerati. It took me a little while to acquire the taste for this label, finding them too ungainly at first; but then kept being drawn back to their unusually organic feel and almost clunky styling. LD Tuttle engineer the perfect awkward shoes. These Moon Open Toe booties would be my non-black go-to choice to put on with all black outfits.

LD Tuttle

United Nude have fascinated me for many years, since their Mobius came out. This season they out do themselves with this their super-future lightweight carbon fiber heels. United Nude shoes are seamlessly architectural feats; tricky to the eye and challenge you to take a closer look at their construction, just like the original Mobius strip.

United Nude

Now we come to one of the most coveted shoes of the season, Alexander Wang's peep toe Alla leopard print wedges. I can imagine the claws that have come out in the scuffle for the acquisition of these. To me, their appeal lies in the subtlety of the print: not an overtly obvious leopard, but perhaps more of a chic, stylised one, and the way the three different segments so wittily play against each other. Good luck getting your hands on a pair.

Alexander Wang

I adore how graphic Pierre Hardy is. So, just for fun, these rather charmingly blocky sandals from the forth coming FW 2010//11 collection, with their delicious colour combinations and over sized buckles are a delightful statement to stomp around in that I do actually find have a rather warmly feminine element.

Pierre Hardy

Anything by Camilla Skovgaard and Acne (as usual) wouldn't go astray either...And a bonus 7th pair for all you sneaker freaks, here are some wicked sneaks that Jean Charles de Castelbajac did in collaboration with Gola (which aren't available until September though I'm afraid). Too cool.

Jean Charles de Castelbajac and Gola

'An Encounter of the 5th Kind' is what's going on from the end of this month at Selfridges, as from April the 30th until June the 30th, the iconic Jean Charles de Castelbajac will be taking over not one, but five of Selfridges' windows (the ones that run along Oxford St) to display a story as could only be told by the one and only vision of Monsieur depicting an alien invasion of central London.

If you're in town and venture into what I often think of as the 'apocalypse now' anyway of west/central, then you must must MUST check these windows. And after that, go and visit the coolest (and nicest) kids on the Savile Row block at the awesome Jean Charles de Castelbajac London Store on Conduit St - and tell them we sent you!

//

P.S. Did you know: that Monsieur has designed some party threads for back when most people liked the Pope (it was John Paul II, and it was for International Youth Day)? Did you also know that Jean Charles was tight with Malcolm McLaren back in the day (besides working/creating then and now with about a million other high profile and seriously iconic persons)? And on top of all that, JC//DC is also down with the kids. Trés cool, no?

Le Corps Mince de Francoise

The first time I paid attention to this trio was when I heard they were slated to play the Jean Charles de Castelbajac's catwalk - Monsieur always knows where it's at.

Le Corps Mince de Francoise on the Castelbajac catwalk

The super gimmicky track titles of their first couple of tracks they released ('Cool and Bored', 'Ray-Ban Glasses') made me shy away from Le Corps Mince de Françoise initially; as well as how long it takes me to type in their name... but in the case of 'Something Golden', I can take it.

Having worked on their album with the likes of Switch, evident in the rolling beat of 'Something Golden', I find that there's also something much closer to Telepathé about the Finnish trio in this particular track, rather than their previous comparisons to Yelle, CSS and Chicks on Speed. Super cute, super accessible, and makes you feel infinitely cool to be listening to it, it's a hot hipster track with pop appeal.

The single is unleashed on December 7th with remixes from Renaissance Man, Heartbreak and Oleo via Kitsuné, but check Lenny Picko's remix; which werks the robots underwater angle to make a sexy androids kinda atmosphere for the track. Pick it up below and slink away to the dirty squat bass synths.

The Look Book

backstage photographs taken by the super fabulous Morgan O'Donovan

Yes yes, so last Friday, GHOST played host to Jean Charles de Castelbajac in launching his diffusion line, JCDC, this season entitled 'Punkahontas and the Ducks'. We told you about this when we broke the news that JCDC were holding a model casting for the new line.

Off the official schedule for London Fashion Week, the JCDC show was one of the super hot tickets. Doors were open at 9, and there was an epic queue outside at least half an hour before. Ja'Maie had tipped me off that the guest list was seriously oversubscribed, with only a 500 capacity venue and like, billions of people on the list. Moral of the story: get there EARLY.

Luckily for me, Designer Drugs were in town and had gotten there before I rolled up. I jumped in the queue with them, yelled above the throng of people (pretending they were too cool to throng) something about the list, my name and Designer Drugs at the door, to which the bouncers and PR all gave me total WTF face until it clicked that I wasn't shouting about law evading substances.

The catwalk that wound around the venue and the seating that lined it, resulted in a less than 500 capacity (I swear), cause so many people weren't able to come in - a lot of pissed off kids were left outside. But at the afterparty though, I did spot Yvan the Facehunter, Susie Style Bubble for Dazed and more interestingly, super sports fan and huuuge patron of the arts and fashion James Goldstein. Admittedly, I had no idea who he was. I simply noticed him rocking a black snakeskin cowboy hat and silver jeans. Michael Designer Drugs mentioned that he had read an article about him on the plane and told me that I should ask him if he likes basketball. So our conversation went like this:

Do you follow basketball?

Jim: Yeah, I do! Do you?

No, but I follow you following basketball. Can I have a photograph with you?

Jim: Sure!

Shameless (me that is)

photo by Liz

AAAnyhoo, the show was great, massive kudos to Anthony Stephinson who put the whole shindig on. The Regulators played a fitting soundtrack too. I'm really not a Peaches Geldoff fan much, but she closed the show, and had the honour of accompanying Monsieur in his final walk through.

The super Morgan O'Donovan was snapping shots backstage, so here's some of the awesome pics he kindly sent over:

Monsieur and his models

Peachy Peachy Poo tryna give us some couture poseur

Check the full gallery below. Long live JCDC!

GALLERY

Monsieur

This upcoming London Fashion Week, the iconic Jean Charles de Castelbajac is launching the diffusion line for his eponymous label that is being officially dubbed JC/DC!

So word up hotties, all you fun boys and girls (aged 16 - 25) who think they can WERK it enough to model in a special catwalk presentation that's going on during London Fashion Week on Friday 18th September, send a face shot and a full length body shot ASAP to be considered (including your body statistics):

rsvpcasting@jc-de-castelbajac.com

... there will be a live casting during the week of September 7th, where the successful candidates will be outfitted...

Hit them up! Smile with your eyes! Find the light!

You never know who'll be on the panel, so kids, put your fierce face on.

Bruno, datchu? Invading the Castelbajac catwalk

Man Like Me for Jean Charles de Castelbajac, Spring//Summer 09

I know this is soooo totally like, beyooond last season, but when I heard Man Like Me were doing the live soundtrack to Jean Charles de Castelbajac's S/S 09 collection, I hit Jonny up to sniper a shot of the band with JCDC. When I asked him about it prior to the show in Paris, he said of course, but, "Who's JCDC?" THE DESIGNER silly!

If you're about in London, don't forget to drop by the newest Jean Charles de Castelbajac store on Conduit St to shop pieces from the current collection, to check out the ravey technicolour custom made counter, light sabres and the walls drawn all over by JC's own hand. There's also always the Paris store, but as the man himself says, 'Paris Talks, London Rocks' (innit).