Eyes bugging out of head.

Every now and then, you come across a pair of shoes so special that everything else - your Starbucks fetish, your credit card debt, your need for textbooks and/or a home - disappears. This is called a shoe crush, and it is a serious affliction.

Now, I'm no Becky Bloomwood, but I allow myself one extravagant (for a college student in Chicago) pair of shoes per summer, with the qualifier that I have to first maintain a serious shoe crush over at least two months' time. Last year it was a pair of burgundy patent peep-toe Mary Janes that I salivated over on my way into the mall every day for my retail job. As my friends can attest, they were worth every penny - I loved them to death (and subsequently wore them to death - that thing they say about replacing the plastic heel caps before they wear off completely? Yeah, do that.). Rewarding yourself for hard work with something you've consciously saved for is an excellent reminder not to waste money on the trivial.







Maybe I'm still reeling from Dior's black-and-nude duos in the Fall '09 couture show, but when I stumbled across these L.A.M.B. heels this morning I nearly dropped my iPod Touch in the pool. How perfect would they be with everything from a little black dress to pegged boyfriend jeans and a cardigan? With bright colors and basics? With black tights and without? This is it for this summer, folks. These are The Ones. I'm just praying I can still get my hands on them at the end of my two-month waiting period - they sold out in my size on Piperlime within literally an hour. Nordstrom, wait for me!

P.S. Runway reviews are in the works for Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino. Couture is exhausting. I needed a break.

Fall '09 Couture: Episode V: Givenchy Strikes Back.

If I were a science fiction fanatic, this is where I would make a witty crack about how the house of Givenchy had been hijacked and placed in the hands of a dark overlord from a planet where visible nipples reign supreme and hips are made to look twice their circumference.







Sadly, I've never so much as seen a Star Wars movie. So I have no such crack to make.

Grade: B. Not very wearable, or really very flattering...but memorable, for which I give props. The fusing of Moroccan influences with the space age is something that only a designer with balls could pull off, and I think we can infer that Riccardo Tisci is packin'.

Fall '09 Couture: Elie Saab commits a fashion haute pas.

Oh. Well. This is awkward.









Staging an all-white fashion show six months after Karl Lagerfeld's famously all-white Chanel show at the same venue? No offense, Elie Saab - the clothes are pretty and all, but use your head here. Common sense and imagination.

Grade: C+. I feel bad, because the collection is actually lovely and the pieces will look fine out on their own. But...NO. Who let him do this?! You just don't mess with the Kaiser.

Fall '09 Couture: Lacroix, or the phoenix rising from the ashes.

Poor Christian Lacroix. For all of this season's cutbacks due to a shaky economy, his story is the most heartbreaking. Earlier this year, Lacroix's financial backers laid off all but 12 of the company's workers due to "financial problems" (according to Lacroix in a New York Times interview, a "lack of chemistry" between the business and creative ends of the label). Though Lacroix, a designer known for his folk influences and theatricality, is determined not to see this upset as the end, his Fall '09 production is hailed as his "last couture show" - with everyone but the models working essentially for free.







The collection was small - just 24 looks - with rich fabrics and colors creating a somber Paris-meets-Russia vibe. The shock of blue in the outfit with the white skirt is breathtaking. I may have actually choked.



When the final piece - an ornate yet somehow funereal wedding dress - came down the runway, the show closed to a standing ovation and many, many tears.

Grade: B+. I'll be honest: it's not my cup of tea. But given the circumstances and aims of the collection (integrity to the label, approachability toward new investors), Lacroix put forth some truly admirable work.

Fall '09 Couture: Solid Christian values.

When it comes to spectacle on the runway, nobody puts on a show like Christian Dior's John Galliano - but as we learned from the scaled-back showroom setting of his Fall '09 couture line, Galliano's is a drama that would appear to be innate. Inspired by half-dressed models backstage and the exclusive simplicity of 1950s-era showrooms, the Dior collection still managed to exude an air of life and luxury. Bright sorbet colors, peekaboo lingerie and models dripping in jewels and dramatic chapeaux were the mainstays of a line that reasserted to the world what, exactly, Christian Dior looks like today.



Could I be more obsessed with the styling of these looks? No. No, I could not. Granted, I may be biased by my weaknesses for both nipped waistlines and partial nudity, but vintage flair crossed with risque modernity is what makes this show so unbelievably sexy.





Galliano showed both punchy colors and classic neutrals, which feel no less special despite their lack of pigmentation:







The gowns have an old-school Madonna/Jean Paul Gaultier feel to them, with corseted tops and full, frothy skirts. The center dress is so interesting - the way it stays fitted through the hips, garter straps dangling, instead of flaring out as soon as it hits the waistline? Not quite as universally flattering, perhaps, but certainly innovative. In other news, I think I may need a Dior hat for next year's Kentucky derby.

Grade: A. So Galliano didn't reinvent the wheel - but given the state of the economy, who can blame him? The clothes not only made for an entertaining couture show, but also provided we mere mortals with a wealth of ideas to copy on a budget (who else is ready to go buy sparkly brooches, black slips and nude heels?). The show was cohesive without being stagnant, and the understatedness felt like a choice, not a necessity. Way to take the economic climate and make it work for you.

Fall '09 Couture: Chanel-derly.

Lacy tights, funnel necks, Victorian-style booties, and trains on everything from skirt suits to minidresses were the name of the game for Karl Lagerfeld and the venerable house of Chanel. Anyone who follows pop culture knows that Karl is pretty much off his rocker, so to see a relatively understated couture show from him is shocking in and of itself.



That's not to say the clothes weren't impeccably crafted; as per usual, the suits and dresses are to die for. I adore the pairing of the cameo brooch with the edgy leopard trim in the suit on the left. Upturned pockets give shape to a basic silver shift in the middle photograph, and the subtle luxuriousness of jeweled embellishments against winter-white wool (on the right) is about as elegant as it comes.

There were a few LBDs that made my heart stop beating...



...And a couple of Oscar-worthy gowns that almost made me want to become an actress again.



(I'll wear one to my book party.)

Another staple of the collection was what can only be described as high-fashion algae.



Wild, right? And by wild, I mean that if I saw it growing in my closet, I'd be concerned. So see? It's okay. The nutty Karl we know and love is still in there. And just wait, it gets better:



Grade: B-. Because I hold Chanel to a very high standard. Sorry, Lagerfeld - you did it to yourself.

Fall '09 Couture: The devil wears Armani.

In my career fantasies, where I am a Miranda Priestley-esque 50-year-old woman running a powerhouse fashion corporation in not-quite-work-appropriate clothing (and eating bluefin tuna instead of steak)...I am wearing Fall '09 Armani Privé.





My job naturally also demands that I attend many black-tie affairs, for which I don sweeping couture gowns that I look ravishing in despite my age.



One thing that isn't part of my fantasy: nude jumpsuits. Even if they are hand-beaded.



Grade: A-. You lost a fraction of a point for the jumpsuits, Giorgio, but your seamless 1940s-gone-rock 'n' roll collection has this fashionista screaming "GET ME ARMANI!"

Fall '09 Couture: A hard day's night for Mabille.

Well. This is my first attempt at a full-blown play-by-play of Fashion Week, and I have to say, I couldn't have asked for a better place to start. Despite its impracticality, nothing in fashion fosters bigger risks or stronger opinions than couture - and I hope that my very green (experientially, not environmentally) analysis can help make the otherworldliness of high fashion a bit easier to understand.

First on the chopping block: a designer so new, he doesn't even have his own Wikipedia entry yet. Alexis Mabille is a 30-year-old French designer best known for his key role in the bows-as-accessories trend (here's looking at you, Blair Waldorf!). Apparently, the driving image for this collection was that of a girl waking tangled in her bedclothes. Being the champion of frivolous sleepwear that I am (my nighties are a source of ridicule among my friends), I was fully prepared to fall in love with any collection that could merge two of my favorite things: fashion and naps.



These three looks are my favorites from the show. They're thematic, yet gorgeously wearable at the same time. I love the movement in the ribbons on the two right-hand dresses, and the styling of the first outfit is brilliant - the contrast of the prim organdy blouse with the short skirt and snakeskin sandals is the stuff of mix-master legend.

A few more well-executed (if unexciting) stabs at the maiden-swaddled-in-nightclothes concept:



The rest of the collection, while admittedly more "couture-y," is kind of a mess. A mess that ranges from flagrant disregard for flattery of the female form (with black lace leggings adding insult to injury)...



To near-nakedness...



To some classic runway-style WTF-bombs, like a deep-v-cut-harem-pant jumpsuit/a lace-trimmed saran wrap toga/glittery elbow-length shackles worn with a lumpy librarian jumper.



All things considered, I think Al's having a bit of an identity crisis here. Browse through the entire collection on Style.com and you'll see what I mean - it leaps from lingerie-style dresses one second to tailored suits the next, with a mind-numbingly boring or randomly Gothic piece popping up in between. I'm kind of over white eyelet fabric, which is a major focal point of his collection - and while I can appreciate clothes that are fun and over-the-top, a lot of his more outrageous pieces are just, well, ugly. Mabille is young, and clearly still getting his sea legs about him as far as staging a full couture show goes. I'll be interested to see how his work evolves over the next couple of years.

Grade: C. A designer to keep on the radar, but nothing to sell your firstborn for. Yet.