Boots with metal

I recently did a post on the original boots with Metal detail... New Rocks.

I noticed recently a slight trend with incorporating metal in boots - Lady Ga Ga featured some Alexander McQueen boots featuring metal decoration. Very nice. The amount of alternative fashion the Lady does portray in her clips is damn impressive!


These two are collaborations between Terry De Havilland and Melbourne Jewellery esigner William Griffiths. I've written about William a few times here (he is one of my fav jewellers), his jewellery is very cutting edge, and he takes the edgier side of life and is want to give it life through his jewellery.
Here he has added some of his work to DeHavillands latest line of footwear.... including a play on the word stilleto (stilleto can mean the high heel of stilleto shoes, or is the name given to a type of knife).
Anyways...very nice work by both of them here.

For more of De Havillands shoes, see here:
Article from Vogue UK - http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/090522-terry-de-havilland-launches-his-cou/gallery.aspx
And for William Griffiths Metal Couture range - here's his newish website (he has a store in Melbourne, but is stocked in various shops)
http://www.metalcouture.com/

Lady Ga Ga - more Metal Couture

Lady Ga Ga says she has been bankrupt 4 times... because she spends too much on fashion.
Who knows if thats the truth? I love her visuals and she has cottoned on to Metal Couture, employing it in her film clips.
She is also a frequent user of Manual Albarran pieces... he does some very intersting work.
I'm still researching who makes her stuff, hard to track down.


I would love to know who made this for her. My friend wants me to make one of these..the metal corset I could do, but the spinning wheels are a bit beyond me.


This is a Manual Albarran face jewellery piece. Easily recognisable, I'm guessing its made of brass. His work is very distinctive, and he tends to make work for male models, where a lot of the other metal Couturists make work for females.

Emo Hair

Emo Hair.

Weeeeell...a little post about Emos and their hair. They have plenty. Have you ever seen a bald emo? NO! The guys have the most obvious. Hair is generally dies black, semi long, and hangs over one eye. It looks a bit like an anime character. Tre dark and mysterious. (Hey, with eyeliner, I think looks pretty good. And there is ALWAYS eyeliner). To me, it looks very rawk, mainly because Emo hair is very influenced by their fav band looks.

Sometimes its teased up as well. A bit Brian Molko-esque


Over both eyes... See. I told you there is always eyeliner.


Other variations are with colour.

Emo gals...

Like the guys over the one eye anime character look but long and with colour. And more eyeliner.

Blonde...not sure if this is completely emo esque or not. Hard to say....

This one....tre cool. Geometric with ribbon.


Emo - was it the subculture of the 2000's? Will it be around in 10 years?

Emo clothing

Is Emo dead?

Emo was massive about 2 years ago, where young goths loitering about public places were replaced with young Emos loitering about public places.
About a week ago, I heard some students on the train saying that Emo has dies, and changed its name to "Scene" (no idea?)
Despite all this, two days later I saw an Emo couple, also on the train, looking suitable dressed.

http://www.emoboyfriend.com/img/catpics/emo-boys.jpg


Following the success of bands like My Chemical Romance, AFI, Fall out boy and many other eyeliner wearing types, the EMO clothing and subculture was spawned and adopted by thousands of young things in the UK, US and Australia.

At a cursory glance, Emo subcultural fashion looks a bit like Goth. A lot of black, long straightened hair, eyeline. Its also quite androgynis, which Goth has become over the years. In my opinion, Emo guys look most like Goth guys - there has been signicant influence on each other, in hair styles at least.

Emo initially got its fashion inspiration from the Emo bands and what they were wearing.
Long skinny jeans and T shirts, often black. T shirts may have Emo band names on them.

Studded belts and black wristbands are common.
Converse sneakers, skate shoes are worn, and white or coloured, in contrast to black clothes.

As mentioned, hair is often straighted, and the guys have the "Little Nicky" straight hear, with bangs, often over one eye.

Anyways, I think Emo subculture has hit its peak and may be on its way out. It certainly has some cool fashion associated with it, and I know at least one person who will be sad to see cute Emo boys disapear from the subcultural landscape! :-)

New Rocks.

New Rocks.

I first saw New Rocks in (I think) about 2000. I was in England, in Camden, with the then girlfriend. We saw some cyber gothy people off in the distance. They were wearing these big boots. I was in awe of them...they were tall!!!!! They didn't have anything like new rocks in Australia, and the whole Cybergothy thing was pretty new to the UK, and completely an unfamiliar concept to us.

Anyways, these Cybergoth gals and their big boots wandered off, and we kept shopping in Camden, and came across a shop that sold them. We could look at them close up....they were amazing. We thought they were like a peice of weird art, and I remember saying that they could equally belong on display or on your feet.

We were back in Australia, and the same girlfriend bought me a pair, to make up for a rather major faux pau on her part. Presumably I can keep wearing them forever..the heels are four inches high, so they will never wear off. The boots are solid construction, like armour (and I'm an armourer, so I'm qualified to say that!). I loved them, they were amazing. And they still are.
Only thing is they aren't as unusual as they were when I first bought them.
Then again, what is?

New Rocks, Muy Sympatico.

Eventually New Rock started making girls boots, and corsets and various other things, but as far as I'm concerned, the original big chunky boot is the true New Rock boot. They very much remind me of when the Doctor Martin boot appeared, made a similiar sort of impact, big, weird footwear, except the New Rock Boot was a hellish weird looking thing, and not associated with violence like Docs were. In fact, unusually, for a big chunky, aggressive looking boot, they were very often worn by females.

They are a subcultural fashion icon. In 20 years time, I think we'll probably look back on them and remember of the early 2000's. May be we will laugh..... who knows.

Pics from a very stylish Russian gothic wedding

Well....not strictly fashion, as the fashion or designer isn't identified, and photographically, these are really wedding pics rather than fashion pics per se, but anyways.... they are some pretty damn stylish images.

Photography of a Russian goth wedding featuring some exorbitant hair, makeup and fashion in these shots.
I noticed this on a tacky wedding site http://tackyweddings.com . The site features pics from people's "tacky" weddings. Not sure I agree with a site devoted to this, I'm sure the people getting hitched didn't think there wedding was tacky... but anyways.

Someone posted these pics to the tacky wedding site. Instead of people's usual mundane derogatory comments, most people's comments were about how good the pics were... very complimentary. On a site that's main purpose is ripping into people's tacky wedding shots, to turn the maddening crowd into enthusiastic appreciative onlookers, is a pretty big compliment for the couple featured.

Anyways, the pics. Unfortunately can't credit the photographer, its all Russian to me.

Blue Suede shoes - Rockabilly Creepers

Pointy toed leopard Skin Rockabilly Creepers, with crepe soles.

I like Brothel Creepers. Brothel Creepers got their name because the soles were quiet and allowed people to "creep" and not be heard. Well, that was the story I remember from years ago. Apparently they were invented just after WW2, the crepe soles were an innovation used in military footware in North Africa.

They are big shoes, with big Crepe soles. People like big shoes. 20 years ago, they were expensive imports only available at specialist shops in Sydney. They normally used odd(exotic) material on the top of the instep, which apart from the big crepe soles, was the other feature. The instep would have patterns, or be made of fur, or a bright red or purple colour.

They were not subtle..and correspondingly very popular.

I love creepers. I'm not a fan of Rockabilly clothing generally . When I first got into subcultural fashion, ...2o years ago(eeep)... I was more on the mod side of things. And mods and Rockabillies didn't get on back then. Mod was very English, and Rockabilly was very American.

However, now, I love the deathrock/psychobilly gothabilly sort of spin on Rockabilly.
This aside...I always loved Creepers. The infamous "Blue Suede Shoes" made famous by Elvis.

I used to hang with Rude boys, and they even started wearing rockabilly shoes. Creepers became an accepted part of the Rude boy subcultural fashion, even though the original Rude boys (or mods, or skinheads, the other subcultures that related to rude boys) of course never wore Rockabilly footwear). From memory, Madness, the Two Tone ska band wore crepe shoes, so I think the Rude boys picked up on it from there.

In a subcultural sense, Creepers are interesting in that they cross subcultural boundaries. Many subcultures wear them... rude boys, Rockabilly, new wavers, psychobilly, greasers and goth, and apparently Japanese Visual Kei.

Just talking about them wants me to go and buy some.


Red Suede, extra high crepe soles and leopard skin instep.. now we are getting somewhere.


These ones are a bit Gothanista (Fashionista + Goth), high crepe soles, leather (?) uppers and flames.

Is it wrong to covet another subcultures fashion items?. Post subculture philosophy says to use it all!