Shoe Fleur

40. Shoe Fleur: a Footwear Fantasy, by Michel Tcherevkoff

Photographer Michel Tcherevkoff noticed that a leaf, the photograph of which he had just taken, looked like a shoe. He manipulated the image and came up with his first "shoe fleur". Inspired, he made more of these fantastic images, now not only of shoes, but of handbags.

These images have been gathered into a book, a book which is itself a work of art. Heavy cardboad covers with the image of a shoe on the front and a handbag on the back are attached to a cloth-covered spine which carries the title and author information. The endsheets are a pale green, with a faint leaf design. The title page is faux vellum, with the script "shoe fleur", overlaying an image of that first shoe, called "La Première". The book is enclosed in a pink plastic slipcase with a ruffled edge that meets the image of leaves on the cover and a circular opening that reveals a variegated tulip that is part of the cover shoe.

Interestingly, although these shoes are fantasies, many of the designs, if translated into less delicate, less ephemeral, materials, would be quite wearable. I would certainly be happy to own any of these items!

The photos and text are enhanced by a preface written by Ferruccio Ferragamo and an introduction by Diane von Furstenberg.

And you've got to love the punny title!

More images can be seen at Tcherevkoff's website.

Your Jimmy Choos aren't.

27. The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe, by Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen

Jimmy Choo, the shoemaker, hasn't had anything to do with Jimmy Choo, the shoes, for quite a while now. That's what this book is about - the way a small, artisanal shoemaking company catering to a select group of wealthy women was turned into an international luxury ready-to-wear brand featured on television and the red carpet.

One of Mr. Choo's customers was a young woman named Tamara Yeardye, a socialite with business in her blood. She saw the potential of the business, and used her social and business connections to raise the funds to capitalize on it. Convincing Mr. Choo, though, was even harder, but she did. The saga of Jimmy Choo (the company) is a microcosm of the world of start-ups, IPOs, leveraged buyouts, private equity firms, all the pieces that made up the financial picture of the late '90s and early 2000s. And it's also the story of some very powerful personalities, and how their personal lives and scandals affected the company.

Honestly, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. The blurbs, and certainly the first chapter, read like a gossip magazine. But slowly and inexorably I was drawn in by the vivid way the authors describe the financial machinations, the growth of the company through multiple sales, the dealmaking. It's easy to be misled by the initial portrait of Tamara Yeardye Mellon posing in "cleavage and stiletto shoes" by her nude photograph. Despite her social butterfly image, and the very real scandals she was involved in, she is one smart, driven and ambitious cookie.

The authors are, respectively, a journalist specializing in fashion and luxury goods, and an equity analyst and founding partner of a private equity firm. It's not difficult to tell who wrote what, and the way in which the book bounces back and forth between Yeardye's personal pecadilloes and high finance is a bit distracting. Kudos, however, to Ms. Maceira de Rosen for explicating complicated financial dealings in a way that makes them clear and understandable to the lay person.

The story of Jimmy Choo is, to me, a sad one. True, he is now a wealthy man as the world measures wealth. But he and his niece (who had worked with him in his shop but now works with Yeardye Mellon) do not speak. And the man who, with his art and careful craft, made the beautiful shoes that first attracted Yeardye's attention now cannot use his own name without someone else's consent.