High-Fashion for the Masses!

This is a trend that's been a long-time coming: big time fashion designers creating reasonably-priced lines for the everyday consumer. The trend really kicked into high gear with Target with their designer lines of clothing and home accessories which all bore price tags that ten years earlier would have made designers choke on their fizzy water.

This is a trend that fits right into the Lush Life(SM) macrotrend. People want luxury and they want to feel like they have some of the finer things in life, even if they're on a near-beer income. This is a macrotrend that crosses a few generations, most notably Gen Xers and Millenials.

Now the trend is taking a turn to the artistic. It's beecoming a subtle kind of high-style with a high degree of supposed individual epxression. Of course, for real individual expression you'd have to design something yourself. But artistically-expressed styles can still allow someone to show off a lot about who they are without ever saying a word.

The latest in this trend comes to us courtesy of Puma, which has a new line of shoes designed by Alexander McQueen. McQueen was asked why he would designer a line of trainers and he replied that it's because he's addicted to them. He said he "easily (has) 450 pairs" at home. He is also a big fan of anatomy and it shows, he referenced 19th century anatomical drawings of the foot when designing his line and you can see it in the shape of the shows and, most notably, in the tendons that connect the toes to the back of the shoes on the soles.

To see more of his line (and find out where you can buy your own) click it

here

More examples of expressionistic- and designer-fashion styles can be found in the shoe industry, from Adidas Originals to Reebok, who has gone after the hip-hop culture with lines endorsed by such stars and moguls as Sean Carter (aka Jay-Z) and 50 Cent with his own G-Unit line. Reebok has also gone after the artist though with their Basquiat shoe. And, of course, other examples of this are abundant in our culture nowadays, but with shoes being one of the most diverse ways someone can express themselves without drawing too much attention to the fact we can expect the shoe industry to continue to be on the cutting edge with this trend.