The Latest Name In Shoes Belongs to Obi Cymatica

Obi Cymatica has been obsessed with fashion for as long as he can remember –– he spent much of his youth sketching one ensemble after another. But around his 18th birthday, it suddenly hit him: he spent far more time working out details of the footwear than the rest of the outfit, and shoes were always the most exuberant part of the finished sketch. It was at that point, as a Forest Hills high school student in Queens, that Cymatica made up his mind to become a shoe designer.

Obi Cymatica was born in Madagascar, to Nigerian parents, and spent most of his childhood in Nigeria. When he was 16, he moved with his family to New York. As a designer, he's self-taught, but extremely determined: barely out of his teens, he started his own label, established a relationship with a factory in Florence, and landed a retail account with the online designer shop, Saxa. Even now, at the slightly-less-tender age of 25, he still makes every decision about the design and manufacture of every pair of his boots and shoes. 

Cymatica's idols include Christian Louboutin, whose "attitude toward making shoes" he particularly admires, along with how Louboutin has managed to maintain the aura of an atelier-based shoemaker, while growing his business by leaps and bounds. But Cymatica's ne plus ultra is Manolo Blahnik. They met, once, and the young man found himself almost tongue-tied as he tried to express his admiration for his hero. "I said, Mr Blahnik, you don't understand –– it's because of you I'm a shoe designer. Because of you! I think he just smiled. But it's true."

As for what inspires him, Cymatica says he turns to music. "I put on music, and sit down to draw. It might be Eartha Kitt, or house music, Amy Winehouse or a movie soundtrack. I envision a woman in that musical environment, and start sketching. If it's romantic, maybe the shoes reveal a little more skin; if the music is strong, the shoes become stronger, too. I like strength. After all, shoes are armor for your feet."

Photographs by Noël Sutherland. Leg model (and muse): Faustina Rose. Produced and styled by Mark Grischke for Fashion As a 2nd Language.

Our Lady of Immaculate Soles: The Cult of Stilettos

Just last month, we saw a fun documentary, God Save My Shoes, directed by Julie Benasra and produced by Thierry Daher. It's now available on DVD (click the film's name, above, to go to the site), and it's a worthwhile purchase for anyone who loves shoes, or is simply interested in the symbolic roles they've played throughout history. There are interviews with designers like Manolo Blahnik, Walter Steiger and, bien sûr, Christian Louboutin, whose Fall 2012 collection we recently previewed in Paris and New York (where we saw this chic glitter pump with a vinyl vamp piped with nude patent, and a black bow). The film's director also spoke to fashion historians (including Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Elizabeth Semmelhack, senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum); sexual psychologists; and even an orthopedic surgeon. But the real stars are the various women who literally bare their soles for the camera. Personalities as different as burlesque star Dita Von Teese, pop singers Kelly Rowland and Fergie, and prima ballerina Marie-Agnès Gillot (from the Opéra de Paris) either take the viewer into their closets or sit and wax poetic about what shoes mean to them. And if you're a shoe addict yourself, you'll recognize more than a few kindred spirits.

Valentine's Day Surprises for Him, Her and You

Valentine's Day–there, we said it. It's a freaky holiday that can be utterly sublime or incredibly ridiculous, depending on your partner's taste (or lack thereof). Two dozen red roses? No thank you. Chocolates? Perhaps–but only if they come from La Maison du Chocolat. Red silk undergarments? Not our thing: but while we're talking underwear, we wouldn't say no to a sexy little something from Armor-lux, Zimmerli, Roberto Cavalli or Missoni (please, no baggy plaid boxers or ugly briefs with logo waistbands). For the woman in your life who's partial to lingerie, we recommend Sabbia Rosa (which essentially requires a trip to Paris), La Perla or the super-chic ERES. If a bit more oomph is required, try Agent Provocateur (which just opened its second New York store, on Madison Avenue).

But there's no reason to stick with chocolates or lingerie. For your chic boyfriend, anything from Balmain's men's collection, Lanvin, or, if he's on the preppier side, Alexander Olch (not to mention Band of Outsiders) will make him smile. Your chic girlfriend? What could be nicer than devastating pumps from Christian Louboutin? Finally, if price is no object, something extraordinary–like the Cassel Pink Diamond (4.71 carats), set in an antique ring, above, and currently available at Rau Antiques in New Orleans–is the way to go. Especially if your Valentine happens to be...yourself. Fashion is fleeting, love burns hot (and may die,) but diamonds are everyone's best friends.

Guardians of Temple Louboutin Have Red Soles

Before gaining notoriety as author of the first Simpsons episode, cartoonist Mimi Pond produced a slim volume called Shoes Never Lie (Berkley, 1985), the funniest monograph-cum-humor book ever written about footwear and lust. If you're a regular FA2L reader, you've seen it quoted here before. On the subject of red shoes, Pond waxed poetic:

Red shoes are possibly the darkest of all secrets that women keep from men. Though men are frustratingly immune to the lure of most footwear, red shoes are a different matter altogether. They allow you to hold the opposite sex in your sway. At the sight of them, men become befuddled and confused. They stammer and perspire and must pull at their neckties like some poor cartoon character. The funniest part of all is that they think it's your perfume, or your personality.

Christian Louboutin's own fame post-dates Pond's book, but the man knows from red shoes: his signature soles are lacquered a glossy, candied-apple crimson. He's also stretched heels to astonishing new heights, and, in the process, gained thousands of followers who attend each new collection like Delphic pronouncements. It's easy to imagine anthropologists of 2075 writing about Louboutin as the leader of a veritable cult, just as Roger Vivier, Charles Jourdan and Manolo Blahnik were before him. Meanwhile, some clever fashion student will probably find a way to combine vertiginous stilettos, shiny red soles and enough rocket fuel to launch late-21st-century stylistas into orbit.