Photos: Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin / Courtesy of the CFDA

The CFDA Awards aren’t until June, but the first shots from the Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin-shot CFDA Journal, which profiles the nominees and honorees, debuted today. For the fourth year running, Trey Laird designed the journal, overseeing the photographers’ black-and-white shots of the likes of Marc Jacobs (Womenswear Designer of the Year nominee and Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, top), Lady Gaga (Fashion Icon Award honoree, above), and Alexander Wang (Womenswear Designer of the Year nominee, below).

The heel is black vinyl, and they work with just about anything. Just make sure you have something solid up top and bottom, whether it’s skinny jeans, pencil skirts, little black dresses… Even mix with charcoal gray.

- Includes two replacement heel caps
- 3 1/2″ heel
- Man-made materials
- Imported

Buy it here.

PRODUCT DETAILS
These pumps are a must-have for your ever-growing shoe collection. They have a soft tan leopard print, a black vinyl heel and a pointed toe. Chic and stylish!

These Very Volatile Leopard Heels from Hot Topic are really chic. I love the heel height — three and a half inches — as well as the price. It’s $29.99 — a $10 discount!

And although it’s not a “hot new trend,” the sexy staple always works no matter what the news or the climate is.

We are trained to constantly lengthen our legs and not break up the “line” of our bodies with something like a dreaded T-strap shoe or something even worse…like an ankle strap!

Solution?

Aldo has just the ticket! I found these $90 Segura heels surfing the web and have to say that they are rockin’! Patent leather peep toe, squared heel on a platform. It’s simply perfection. The other great plus is this can live in your closet season after season because, well, when was the last time you heard that skin tone was going out of style?

PRODUCT DETAILS
You can never go wrong with a pair of killer pumps! This leather option instantly makes your look more stylish and fashionable. Featuring a towering square heel that’s compensated with a bold platform, squared at the front.

- High Heel (2.5 in. and +)
- Material: leather
- Sole: synthetic
- Sizes 5-11

Buy it here.

But let’s face it: For more than $500, I would rather pay for something more important like…rent?

The nude platform pump. I first spotted the iconic Brian Atwood pump on Megan Fox (she wore them with the cinnabar slit Cavalli gown) at the Tranformers premiere and almost died.

“I don’t have much time to think about what to wear in the mornings, so it was important to me to create chic-but-effortless pieces that you can just throw on for the school run, then head off to work for meetings, and feel great in what you’re wearing,” model-turned-designer Claudia Schiffer told Style.com of her new namesake line of cashmere knits. The collection may be all about ease, but creating it didn’t come without its share of difficulties for the industry veteran. Of her experience on the design side, she says, “I think what was most challenging has been to realize my ideas into the actual garments. It’s been a huge learning curve, but it’s something I have wanted to do for a long time. Her site, ClaudiaSchiffer.com, launches today with e-commerce to follow on August 12. Here, exclusively on Style.com, the blonde bombshell debuts a Danny Vaia-directed video for her new offerings.
—Kristin Studeman

For more information: Visit Zara.com.

I also feel that these footwear accessories will thrive and always be in style — just like good old rock n’ roll. Recently, I waltzed into go-to footwear retailer Zara for a quick pick-me-up the other day and found these fabulous platform heels for $169. J’adore!

I’m semi-delirious and totally fixated on all of these studs and grommets on Zara’s new style of high heel platforms.

Check out Hollywood’s sky-high heels!

People will be dying at your feet because these heels are so hot!

Sized extra-small to large, this $68 sheer chiffon and sequined cardigan — available in charcoal gray and black — is perfect past Christmas and New Year’s Eve when paired with a plain T-shirt and a pair of shorts, jeans or even a pencil skirt.

This was a sell-out at Urban Outfitters. It’s back — on backorder, at least — and I know why: It’s a little magic, a little Michael Jackson and completely dazzling!

Buy it here.

PRODUCT DETAILS
- By Silence & Noise exclusively at Urban Outfitters
- Sheer chiffon bed jacket cropped short with an open front
- Covered with tonal sequins
- Imported
- Hand wash
- 21″ length from shoulder to hem
- Polyester

“Hermès is a very luxury brand, but it’s about horses and animals, so I wanted to link this roughness to something much more feminine,” designer Pierre Hardy tells Style.com of his newest Hermès Haute Bijouterie collection. Yesterday, the designer, who has helmed the French brand’s jewelry and footwear for 20 years (and also does the Balenciaga shoes with Nicolas Ghesquière), arrived in New York to fête his latest whip and hoof-inspired offerings, available at Hermès’ Madison Avenue boutique until October 22. “It’s rare, it won’t be in New York so often,” he adds. So what about a saddle (the first Hermès item ever made) collection of bijoux? “Not yet; that might be difficult, but maybe that will be next.”

If anyone would be up to such a challenge, it’s Hardy. Aside from working with Hermès and Balenciaga, he recently collaborated with the car company Peugot on a futuristic “concept shoe” made of carbon fiber. What’s next on the docket for Hardy? “I don’t know. If I do any other collaborations, they have to be a very different subject that I can transform with fashion,” he says.
—Kristin Studeman

Photo: Sean Thomas

MaCoHa—no, it’s not some Manhattan neighborhood you’ve never heard of. It stands for the Malawi Council for the Handicapped, and it’s Holly Dunlap’s current cause célèbre and design collaborator. A little over two years ago, Dunlap discontinued her successful footwear and accessories line Hollywould and decamped to Africa. It was there that she met her Italian beau, who was building a school in Malawi, and decided to “trade one life in for another.” So she swapped the parties, manicures, and air conditioning in New York and Los Angeles for a 1984 Toyota Sprinter, no Internet, and the simple life.

Dunlap’s new label 4MaCoHa offers embroidered tunics ($95 to $150) and home goods ($65 to $595), which are all made from local Malawian cotton by MaCoHa’s disabled employees, who are deaf, blind, or have amputated limbs (the head patternmaker is a double amputee). At a preview for the label’s Resort launch collection yesterday, Dunlap explained that “because of witchcraft dogmas, people in Africa still think that if someone has a handicapped baby, then their family is cursed, and MaCoHa is about showing the country what [the] disabled can do.” Dunlap tried to stay true to traditional African designs (they’ve been making caftans since the seventies) and picked the bright color palette. She also added in a few personal references to the collection, like the hand-loomed rug that took over a week to make, which looks like the poster for 1960’s surf documentary The Endless Summer (Dunlap loves to hang ten). Dunlap’s goal is to create more employment opportunities for MaCoHa and to create a demand in the country for their own products instead of exporting everything. The MaCoHa artisans, who “were born smiling,” are enjoying their moment in the sun. “They look at themselves on the Web site and say, ‘That’s me!’,” Dunlap said. “They love a little bit of fame.”

4MaCoHa goes on sale in December on L-attitude.com.
—Brittany Adams

Photos: Courtesy of Holly Dunlap and 4MaCoHa

“The first thing I was asked when I arrived on set was whether I was afraid of heights,” Kate Bosworth told Style.com over whiskey and Cokes at London’s Brown’s Hotel last night. “And let’s just say, it’s a good thing I am not.”

For Lov, the new Bosworth-starring short film that launches Vanessa Bruno’s Fall ‘11 campaign, the starlet was hoisted to the top branches of a 40-foot fir tree in Slovenia. The role also called for Kate to do backflips, ride horses, endure a broken heart, and, as she put it, “run the gamut of emotions in less than three minutes. I had to be strong in one shot, then incredibly fragile and vulnerable, then heartbroken and lashing out in the next. But you know, that is life, isn’t it?”

The Straw Dogs star is something of a favorite of Bruno’s. “It was a coup de foudre,” the designer explained. “As soon as we met, I knew she was perfect because she has intelligence about the way she wears clothes, and a subtlety that not a lot of girls have.” It probably didn’t hurt, either, that Bosworth has those classic Scandinavian features that represent Bruno’s Danish heritage—a heritage that was not only the inspiration for the collection (think Nordic knits, fur touches, and cozy bonnets) but also the film.

“Vanessa really knows how to design for a woman. The way she drapes her blouses shows off the sensuality of a woman’s neck and the clavicle area,” Bosworth added. “She has a wild ambition and a real passion for clothes that I believe comes through loud and clear in this film.” Check out the world premiere of the Lov, above.
—Afsun Qureshi