SPRING IS OFF AND RACING!

Here in Australia we're heading into Spring time, and if you’re anything like us, Spring means picnics, long leisurely walks, and most importantly - Spring Racing! Believe it or not once a year we have a horse race that stops the entire nation, the Melbourne Cup, and it’s right around the corner.

Attending the races is a commitment to style and elegance, as fashion and horse racing have gone hand in hand for over 100 years. What better way to celebrate the rites of Spring than by designing some gorgeous shoes to top off your outfit?

Trying to nail the perfect look for you can be like entering a maze - lots of fun, but tricky to navigate. Here are our tips to planning an outfit that will ensure you are outstanding in the field.

Know your shape and dress to suit it - When in doubt, get something tailored to fit you.

Dress for the Day - For Derby Day it's striking black and white, on Oaks Day go for a floral, feminine look and for Cup Day make a bright, colourful statement (extra points for incorporating yellow - the official colour of the Melbourne Cup!)

Choose your headwear carefully - While a gorgeous piece of headwear is an essential part of our outfit, don't treat it as an additional feature but as an integral element in your total look. Whether you decide on - a fascinator, a hat, a floral crown, a beret, a bird' nest or even a laurel wreath - make sure it complements and adds pizzazz to your outfit.

Go easy on the make up - Less is best for a day in the sunshine. Use powder to set off your foundation, and opt for false lashes instead of a thick coating of mascara. A defined lip can really set off your look, and is fairly easy to maintain.

Shoe selection- Wear something you know you will be comfortable in and make sure you can handle the heel height you select. There's nothing classy about leaving the track with shoes in hand at the end of a long day!

Sometimes it’s ok to break the rules - Despite what we’ve said above, the most important rule is to wear what you love and feel great in! If you feel best with your legs on display, we say roll with it! And while traditionally prints were avoided or treated with caution, with the recent popularity of digital prints this rule is old hat. Make the most of it with a fabulous monochrome dress!

Our trend picks for the 2013 season? Be daring and pack a punch with a bold bright hue, or keep it timeless and chic with monochrome.

TREND PICKS FOR SPRING RACING 2013

Black and white is also one of this season's biggest trends. Either wear it all over or pick one of the gorgeous structured white dresses currently available and punctuate it with eye-catching monochrome accessories.

Summer Kicks Series: The PF Flyers Vintage Center Hi Sneakers

This post brought to you by PF Flyers. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Men’s Style Pro.

Center Hi Vintage Sneakers – PF Flyers | Black & White Joggers – Grungy Gentleman | Grey Side Zip Hoodie – Zanerobe | Hunter S. Thompson Aviators – Boast USA x Reds

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To kick off the MSP Summer Kicks Series, we present the Center Hi Vintage sneakers from PF Flyers. Over the last two years, PF Flyers have been featured four times on Men’s Style Pro and I have to say I’ve become quite fond of the brand because of simplicity of their designs. Having the opportunity to grab a pair for this feature, I was immediately drawn to the Center Hi Vintage style because they’re the perfect summer hi top sneaker. Where most people gravitate to ostentatious designs & colors during the summer, I’ve decided to follow suit with PF Flyers’ mantra and unfollow the crowd and keep my shoe choice simple, classic & personal. 

Rocking a pair of high tops in the summer can be a dreadfully hot experience, but, with a canvas uppers and a light-weight rubber sole — these kicks are extremely light. As a white shoe fan, it’s definitely refreshing to see true white canvas pair with the natural/off white of the soles for a bit of color variation — which really plays into the vintage aesthetic. 

Finding a balance between sportswear, streetwear & menswear is often seen as somewhat of an impossible task. While searching for a pair of hi-tops that met all those needs and were summer ready, my eyes were immediately drawn to all the white sneakers on the PF Flyers site. The search was also hinged upon leather & canvas sneakers. There was no doubt that the leather center hi’s were more formal & traditional “menswear” appropriate, however; the white canvas Vintage Center Hi hit the market of the summer hi top. 

Below you’ll find some style tips and notes about rocking the Vintage Center Hi sneakers and some more reason why I chose them.

Style Tips & Notes to Rocking the Center Hi Vintage Sneakers

• ​These sneakers pair perfectly with jogger pants, so this is a time to experiment with both trends (hi tops & joggers)
• The hi-top neck/ankle of the shoe is slender, which means the taper of your pants should complement it
• They’re a blank canvas in regard to color, so pair them with just about everything in your closet (color or style-wise)
• Pay homage to their classic basketball style by pairing them with athletic influence apparel like vintage tees or modernizing them with a side-zip sweat shirt & joggers 
• The simple black & white PF Flyer ankle patch is a true throwback to the original patch 
• White canvas is option hard to maintain. Treat these sneakers with waterproof & stain repellent to extend the life of your kicks
• Wearing jeans or chinos? Cuff your pant legs meet top of your sneakers
• And yes, you can wear them with shorts. For a flash of personal style, flip the ankle of your sneakers down
• You may never play a game of basketball in these vintage style sneakers, but, if you’ll be attending game these should be in your footwear rotation

Check out PF Flyers on Tumblr or shop now and cop a pair of PF Flyers for yourself.

My Custom Made Wedding Shoes!

My beautiful and gifted friend, Lucia Roman offered to design me some wedding shoes and I’m not an idiot so of course I said yes! Lucia is our L.A.M.B. designer and is responsible for the designs of some of my favorite shoes in our companies history! She’s crazy talented so I knew I was in good hands…She sketched up several options and we picked the four that we liked best. Those four were made into prototypes and then the winner was made for me to wear on my wedding day! This beautiful pearl encrusted bootie was perfect in every way.Thank you so much Lucia!!! I love them and am happy that they will forever be a part of the memory of the best day of my life!!!

How To Turn Tricky Fall Fashion Trends Into Office-Friendly Treats

Seasonal weather changes always bring the thrill of new fashions. This fall is no exception.

It’s frightening, though, how many trends appear to be wearable for weekends-only…or look so intimidating. It’s easy to feel like we are wearing costumes.

Don’t get spooked!

Here are my top guidelines for turning this fashion nightmare of tricks into office-friendly treats:

• Phantom Fears: What you wear can support your feeling your most dynamic self on the job. That’s why I always recommend giving a fashion trend a try, if it intrigues you at all. Fear does not need to override your excitement. Just be sure and follow the rest of my guidelines to make it work for work.
• Supernatural Solutions: When it comes to tackling trends for the office, I suggest you opt for the most conservative styles. This way, even if you are slightly pushing the dress code, the odds of you magically appearing modern, elegant, and professionally polished will be in your favor.
• Hocus-Pocus: Style your next career look by incorporating a maximum of two top trends. I advocate for two, because your co-workers focus will then remain on you and not solely on what you’re wearing. Beware! More than two can easily be distracting. Accessories are occasional exceptions to my two-max rule. Keep the rest of your outfit simple and classic.
• RIP: It’s all about exuding confidence and competence, right? To ease any anxiety about wearing a fashion trend to work, I suggest objectively checking yourself out in a full-length mirror to truly make sure it is appropriate for your work environment & position, it flatters your specific body type, and it is something you absolutely feel enlivened wearing.

Saucony Hurricane ISO 2 Review

I really like Saucony shoes, so I was happy to get this pair for testing. Unboxing them revealed the flashy “slime green” color scheme, which was a much tamer color scheme to the Saucony Zealots I ran in last year.

The Saucony Hurricane Iso 2s I was looking at really resembled the Zealots I tried, they had similar overlays, similar lacing setups, and similar external heel counters.

What makes the Hurricane Iso different is that it weighs a tad more to pack more support in the shoe compared to the Zealots.

I can agree with that, but I don’t think it’s that much more support. FYI, if you want more support, go for the Omni, the Xodus or the Redeemer line.

Saucony Hurricane ISO 2 General Info

Saucony Hurricane ISO 2 – Heel

The Saucony Hurricane line of shoes are a highly cushioned shoes with enough support to be considered stability shoes.

Saucony provides a cushioning scale and they rank these shoes just 2 points away from maximum possible cushioning. Their shoe with maximum cushioning is theTriumph.

The Hurricane line is probably on the high end of cushioning for Saucony, but it’s not a pillow-like slipper experience. You’re still getting a responsive ride while wearing these shoes.

Saucony Hurricane ISO 2 Sole Unit

Saucony Hurricane ISO 2 – Sole

The outsole has fair amount of rubber in the bottom, and I would categorize it as rugged when compared to many other types of stability shoes of the same class.

The zig-zag pattern under the forefoot is a more aggressive tread pattern when compared to the previous model that had patches radiating outward from the inside of the forefoot.

This newer pattern of tread for Saucony won’t probably be great for intense trail running, but it looks like the shoe is designed with road and mixed trail running in mind.

Saucony put their highly durable XT-900 rubber at high-wear locations, and their softer iBR+ rubber near the midfoot for better cushioning.

The midsole gets pretty fancy, Saucony is using their EVERUN technology as a stability and cushion boosting insert just beneath the heel. This EVERUN technology is also used in the entire topsole on the Hurricane shoe.

Yes, this is another tech term to throw around, so here are the numbers for EVERUN: 3x better property retention than standard EVA foam, 83% energy returned on each stride.

It’s no flubber, but I would agree it’s better than your standard running shoe foam and I enjoyed the benefits during my longer runs.

Oh, Saucony isn’t done yet with the midsole. They also have their signature PWRGRID+ tech for even more added cushioning, and they have a dual density medial post for added stability.

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 Review

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 General Info

The New Balance 1080 fresh foam brings fresh foam technology to the 1080 for the first time.

Their intention is to take the 1080 series to a whole new level by introducing state of the art technology packaged within its fresh foam midsole.

New Balance places a strong emphasis on how fresh foam was designed by collecting biomechanical data from runners such as wear tendencies and force patterns and directly using that information to create a one piece midsole.

They consider this new way of midsole design a smarter way of designing soles because they are able to actually pinpoint where runners need support and cushioning.

As a result of this new design process the fresh foam midsoles are able, in New Balances words, to deliver a supremely cushioned underfoot feel that respects and maintains a runners need to engage with the ride itself.

The upper of the 1080 fresh foam is also newly designed with an engineered mesh. It is designed to accommodate various instep heights and foot volumes and securely wrap the midfoot.

This shoe looks really nice. It’s not often that I unbox a running shoe and think it actually looks nice and I would wear it outside of a running atmosphere. The foam is thick and the shoe has a wide base.

The upper is made of various mesh materials that are woven together. When I put them on for the first time the cushioning felt firmer than I had expected.

The upper was very comfortable and left a good amount of room in the toe area which I like.

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 Sole Unit

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 – Sole

The fresh foam midsole is thick and supportive. This shoe has a wide base so it feels stable. The midsole is all one piece of foam that has a nice shape that fits my foot well.

When I ran in the shoe I found the cushioning to be a little firm for my liking. New Balance advertises this shoe as delivering a soft ride and I had trouble feeling that softness.

It felt firmer than I am used to with a highly cushioned shoe. Again not rock hard firm but certainly not soft.

From researching reviews of other fresh foam shoes, I knew the cushioning would not be super soft but I didn’t expect it to feel as firm as it did. It just didn’t have that nice comfortable soft ride I was hoping for.

The midsole and insole feel like they conform to the bottom of my foot perfectly so the new design process has given New Balance the ability to make a midsole that I would say is “shaped” perfectly in regards to stability and flexibility.

It has 2 well placed grooves in the forefoot of the outsole that form flex points allowing the shoe to have a smooth ride. Where I’d say it could improve is in the softness of the cushioning.

With the relatively recent surge of max cushioning shoes people are starting to really appreciate feeling a soft midsole with a smooth ride. The ride is smooth and the shoe flexes well but its missing that softness.

I knew not to expect Hoka-like softness but I certainly expected softer cushioning than what the fresh foam provides. I didn’t notice anything new, exciting, or impressive in this midsole that sets it apart from others.

I actually found this shoe to have a firmer ride than a lot of other everyday training shoes that I have run in.

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 Upper Info

New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 – Top

This shoe fits true to size. Everything about the upper screams comfort. It is composed of stretchy mesh materials with plush, soft fabric used in the heel area. When I initially put this shoe on I was highly impressed.

The mesh materials used are forgiving and able to stretch with the shape of your foot. It hugs the midfoot and opens up nicely in the toe box area allowing room for toe splay.

The plush tongue of the shoe has a piece of soft fabric on each side that attaches it to the base of the upper giving this shoe a sock like feel. All of these features that this upper are comprised of seemed really promising until I ran in the shoe.

As I ran in the shoe more I came across a rubbing issue. While the mesh was flexible and able to stretch to the contour of your foot, I found that this flexibility was was mostly on the top and outside of the upper.

The medial side (inside) of the upper could also stretch but to a much lesser extent.

I found that the medial side right near the ball of my foot was stretching this mesh to its capacity which resulted in what felt like my foot rubbing and pounding against a firm strip of fabric.

There is also a seam located in this general area that attaches the New Balance logo to the side of the shoe which could also be part of the problem.

The thread attaching the logo to the shoe is causing the mesh to be less flexible in that area and causing a hot spot. I was also able to feel that the midsole extends into the upper in this area as well.

This basically creates a 1-2 mm lip of midsole that causes an area of irritation. This created blistering on both feet, and this was after a 5 mile run.

This is actually the first shoe thats caused blistering like this that I have tested. This came as a complete surprise because when I initially put the shoe on before running it felt extremely comfortable. Your mileage might vary.

SHOE TREND ALERT FALL / WINTER 2015 – 2016: FUR & SHEAR

Despite the protests from animal-rights groups outside his show, Roberto Cavalli had the fur on every look at Milan Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2014 – 2015. In fact, on the front row, on the street and the catwalk, fur was everywhere this season.
Fendi, a fur house, made the effort of covering the whole runway with genuine goat fur at Fall 2014 Mens’ Wear Show. We surely hope it’s man made fur but it’s not, poor goat. On the shoes, Fendi spared the goat fur and used horse/calf hair and leather.

Designers ditched the heavy-fur on their shoes this season and went for fur trimming or decoration mainly. House Of Holland decorated their bright colored shoe designs with colorful furry balls.

House of Holland Fall 2014

House of Holland Fall 2014

Isabel Marant created “fur-escape” look with leather strapped all over it on their fall 2014 furry boots.

SAINT LAURENT SHOES AT PARIS FASHION WEEK FALL WINTER 2016

Commercial driven, Saint Laurent fall winter 2015/2016 collection is for the young girls who want to go out for fun in rock-style fashion, wearing black eye makeup and strode out in chained up high heel boots.
Short skirt, mini dress, leggings, leather pants and biker jackets, Hedi Slimane, the creative director of Saint Laurent, ticked off all the hot items you have in mind for such an audience in his fall collection.
The retro bad girl images are completed with some amazing killer shoes. Set on sharp cone-shape high heels, the strap sandals and boots are studded with pointy rivets, featuring chains-crossed upper, or side zipper all the way, creating a powerful silhouette and rock’n’roll vibe, irresistible to the girls looking for a night-out wardrobe.  As a shoe store being mentioned by the media with particular pointer on hardware, these shoe designs fit exactly in our flavor.
Click through the gallery below to see Saint Laurent Shoes At Paris Fashion Week Fall Winter 2015/2016 and come back later for more shoe reviews at Chiko Shoes Blog:

VALENTINO SHOES AT PARIS FASHION WEEK FALL WINTER 2016

Valentino Fall Winter 2015/2016 collection is inspired by two muses, Emilie Louise Flöge and Celia Birtwell. Both are print artists and designers associated with rich and creative textile.  “Women can be multifaceted,” said Chiuri backstage. “They can be muses, they can be artists. And our collections speak about this in a simple way.”
The show was started with the black white looks in bold stripes and geometry,  inspired by two-tone checkerboard and triangle patterns used by both artists. Emilie Louise Flöge further fueled the A-line silhouettes while Celia Birtwell collaborated the dragon print on the black dresses.
Compare to the decorative effects and deluxe fabrications of the clothes, the shoes on the runway are very simply designed in a sense of darkness and retro seventies with rock style elements like studs and full front zippers.
At the end of the show, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, in character as Derek Zoolander and Hansel, modeled Valentino men’s looks and wowed the crowd with a good sense of humor.
Click through the gallery to see Valentino Shoes At Paris Fashion Week Fall Winter 2015/2016 and follow us at Chiko Shoes Blog for more to come:

SIDE BY SIDE: FRINGE FACTOR

Put your best fringe forward from work to weekend with a swish in your step.

Unless you’re currently camped out on Mars, there’s no way you’ve missed the memo that the ’70s are in full swing this season. And it’s no surprise that the decade’s hottest detail—fringe—was by far one of the biggest trends spotted on the Spring/Summer 2015 runways, taking on a tribal aspect at Isabel Marant, swinging with flapper flair at Proenza Schouler, and making a metallic appearance at Givenchy (to name but a fringed few).

The good news is you don’t have to go full-on festivalgoer to get the fringed look. A swishy-strapped sandal is a low-key way to enter the fray, especially when it’s fit with a comfortable block heel that boasts an “I live in these” appeal. With a touch of hippie chic on your feet, you can bring a bit of boho to any style. So skip the printed maxi dress and flower crown, and pair a fringe-adorned sandal with an A-line skirt and dressy top to give your work attire a trendy twist. Or, take a more laid-back approach by elevating cropped denim and a camo shirt to kick your casualwear up a notch. Swish!