Shoes Life blog

Want to Work with Shoes and Clothes?

Okay, a discount in shoes isn’t really a good enough reason to apply for a job in fashion retail, but if you have a passion for stylish footwear you might want to consider checking out The Sun, as Peacocks are taking part in their employment drive.

We don’t know what their staff discount is like, but we do know that the affordable shoe collection at Peacocks is ace and the company has earned itself a strong position in the fashion retail industry with its stellar designer inspired clothes.  Sounds like a good place to start a career in fashion retail to us.

Because this Peacocks news has put us in a career –minded sort of mood we’ve made a little list of the shoes you might wear to an interview like this, and what it says about your ability to sell clothes and shoes:

Brogues: Trendy but practical – you’ll be just as good working the till as you will be advising on the latest trends.

Heels: You might not have the speed to scour the floor for sizes but you will be great for standing out in the brands formal and evening wear. Just make sure you can walk comfortably in them – we dont know how interviewers will react to potential staff ask for a plaster because of their towering heels.

Trainers: While you may not be the most stylish of the bunch, you will be useful in a mad dash to the stockroom to restock the shelves and merchandise quickly. You’ll need to make quite an impression though, as trainers at an interview isn’t really the done thing.

Shoes and computers

 

Do you ever buy your shoes online? It saves a lot of time going up and down the high street in search of the new shoes that you're after. And it's often also cheaper as well, since if you have a look around the net you may even find a sale on as well.

The only time I ever thought I'd made a mistake buying shoes over the internet was when I managed to snag avery decent pair of suede shoes at exactly half price - only to find out after ordering that they were in some kind of extra wide fitting. As it turned out though, they were absolutely fine.

Of course if you're really into your shoes online habit, then you may even buy collectors stuff from ebay. It's so easy to give in to temptation these days - all that retail is just a click away!

Shoe science, or is it engineering, revealed.

If you thought that all that goes into a pair of shoes is style and aesthetics, think again.

Parisian shoe guru Christian Louboutin has revealed that the job of shoemaker requires precision and engineering - and from what he says, it definitely must be more diifficult than it looks. And it already looks difficult.

As technology gets more and more sophisticated, I predict that so will shoes. Footwear will evolve as we ourselves do.

We've already seen the Sergey Brin shoe aka the Vibram Five Fingers grab media attention - and great/ slightly unusual though they look, ya can't help but wonder what the future holds when the following are applied to shoes:

Nanotechnology - when GPS is small enough, it will no doubt be put into shoes along with other nanotech  allowing the wearer to look at all kinds of stats when they get home in terms of steps taken, calories burned, and the route info as well.

(Nanotechnology will undoubtedly also introduce self cleaning insoles, so it will be goodbye forever to smelly trainers.)

3d printing - it's not inconcievable that at some point in the future we'll be able to basically download shoe designs from the brand of your choice, and make them at home by pressing a button.

Anti gravity - ok, so this one's ptobably the furthest away of all, but these shoes willprovide an effortless gilde along the pavement. 

We may have expected the 21st century to be the time we all went to work in a flying car but let's face it, decent trainers are much more cool.

 

 

nature shoes

There's often been a kind of 'back to nature' type of shoe design that is in its way almost anti fashion. In the 70s and 80s there were good old fashioned sandals, often favoured by men who were hairy of face and socked of foot, and who favoured pionering natural diets (as lampooned in Mike Leigh's film Nuts In May).

Then when a more countrified look became fashionable, brands like Birkenstock became well known and seen on smart streets in th trendy parts of town.

These days though, the natural/ ergonomic design has reached some kind of apotheosis with the Five Fingers style footwear which looks like one of those foot-shaped ice creams (Walls Funny Feet - ice cream ed.) These shoes are favoured by none other than internet giant Sergey Brin, who has been sporting them for a while now.

The design of Five Fingers is meant to teach the body how to use the muscles it used to when humankind ran abrefoot around the place. Sounds good to me. I just with they could bring back the woolly mammoth as well for a true Cro Magnon experience!

 

 

 

 

1970s clothes vibe

Have you noticed the 1970s recharge of 2011 so far. I wouldn't be surprised if I went home one night and the wife was making goulash and watching the Good Life on a big fat cathode ray tube television, while wearing purple flares and talkign about hyperinflation, strikes, the cold war, and the design of the Ford Cortina.

Ok, maybe not quite to that extent, but the 70s thing is big in 2011.

The clothes shops have a fair range of the current retrovibe stuff - but what about shoes?

 

No ridiculous Noddy Holder boots yet, thankfully...

 

Kate Middleton - wedding shoes

 

Kate Middleton to wear Dutch clogs at her forthcoming wedding was one of the spoof news stories posted on the satire blogs this week, but while Shoes Life doesn't doubt she'd look great in whatever shoes she chooses to wear, clogs wouldn't quite fit the bill.

Other ideas have also been put forward, but there's been no official word yet on what will be worn. Whatever shoes are worn on the big day at the end of next month, expect them to set a trend. 

For an idea of how how shoe - powerful Middleton is, click here to see stylebistro's small compilation of chic pics.

Brogues are big in shoe world right now

On trend, fashion-forward: brogues.

Not just any old brogues though - they need to be light and stylish, not clumpy and serious.

These ones from the womens shoes range at Peacocks are perfect:

 

 

Film star shoes

It looks as if the ballet shoes may be one of the stars of the new must see film Black Swan, as news reports state that at Peacocks clothes, ballet flats are out-selling heels at a rate of three to one, with an increase in sales for ballet flats of over 70% since a year ago.

Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a thriller set in the world of (you guessed it) ballet. With two ballerinas competing for the one role in Swan Lake, strange events begin to ensue, as one of the ballerinas goes on a quest to find her dark side. Not Billy Eliott, then.

footwear frenzy

Often when you're looking for shoes, the big names in shoes often come with a big price tag, sometimes these days even a ridiculous price tag.

One way to make sure you're getting cool shoes without paying over the odds is to go to the mens clothes department of a high street clothing retailer and have a look round. You will find that generally the prices are much more agreeable.

Vat increases versus shoe sales

One thing we'll be extremely interested to know this year is how the world of footwear retailing will be affected by the recent rise in VAT.

Ok, so it's only a further rise of two and a half percent, but there is a psychological barrier pricewise beyond which most of us won't go when buying things - and that extra bit of VAT is bound to have an effect on more expensive items, especially now that 2011 looks like a year when we will all have to economise.

There is of course the possibility that this rise won't actually have too much of an effect on the industry as a whole so long as it reacts to the new reality imaginatively. Value brands are bound to see an increase, while designer brands might just have to adjust their exclusivity pricing since the people who can afford to pay top dollar are going to be more scarce.

Now that the snow has finally disappeared though, one thing's for sure - those winter boots will (hopefully) be taking a long rest.