Suzy Menkes, Out of Africa NY Times (3/30/09):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/fashion/31iht-fafrica.html?_r=1&hpw
The masked face with its feathers of hair glares from the instep. And the savage hybrid of a shoe mixes python straps and a sky-high heel with beads, wooden pearls, a cord and a tassel.
When it appeared on the runway at the Louis Vuitton show in October, who could have believed that the fantastical footwear — selling at €1,250 to €2,250 (about $1,650 to $3,000) a pair — could be the hottest item for summer 2009?
No wonder that the designer Marc Jacobs baptized it the “Spicy,” giving a name to the shoe, as had previously been the custom with the now-fading It bags.
To spice up this footwear, the designer added everything but the kitchen sink — as long as it was out of Africa. Snakeskin, plumes and semiprecious stones set the tone for a shoe that was inspired by Josephine Baker, the famous singer and dancer of 1920s Paris. She resonated with the exotica that was prevalent in a period when the Ballets Russes had set off one fashion trend and the discovery of Egyptian mummies another.
But the surprising thing about the 2009 spring season, where African style is a drumbeat through clothes and accessories, is that it isn’t about the ethnic.
Instead, it is the sculpted, geometric shapes of Africa and its rich, spicy colors that are the strongest forms of identity.
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The colonial world has also been mined for inspiration. The heat-and-dust colors of stone gray and sand beige, with a hint of military khaki, produced another African scenario. For Hermès, that meant re-creating the effect of desert sands on the surface of rippling suede dresses. For Ralph Lauren, the colonial looks fell somewhere between India and Africa, with low-crotch pants — those sarouel and jodhpur styles that are so à la mode this summer.
