Susan K.

Susan Kirschbaum has written features - covering trends, fashion, and art -- for various publications including Harper's Bazaar, London Times, New York Observer, and New York Times since the late Nineties. She has worked as a web editor for both fashion and art concerns and as a founding editor to Fashion Wire Daily, when it served as a wire service to the Associated Press. She has written both synopsis and forwards to photography books by Steidl Dangin. Currently, she is a contributing editor to Whitewall - a seasonal art magazine - that sets new visual and story telling standards to cover the art world. She also writes for Purple, the French fashion magazine.

Her first novel, WHO TOWN, a dark social satire is now being reviewed by several publishers through rock star agent Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic.

(All photos on this blog are taken by Susan Kirschbaum on her Canon SD850 digital point and shoot, unless otherwise noted - please credit all photos accordingly)

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May 05, 2008 8:05 PM (go back to main view)

Oh, La, La Christian!

Esther Silber shows off her "extra" signed Christian Louboutin heel

"I got tricky." Winks Esther Silber, as she lifts her Christian Louboutin heels on Barney's fourth floor to show me the fat signature, "Pour Esther," scrawled underneath. She had just escaped the throng on women lined up to pre-order fall styles, and to have just one pair of Spring/Summer signed by the man himself, sitting behind a long desk in checked brown jacket.

As waiters elegantly slipped through with champagne flutes and truffles, Silber tells me, "I wore these and when I got to him, I said, Christian I know you're only signing one but please, would you do these?" She flips open a box of slingbacks. Indeed, she had scored "Love Christian" with drawn hearts.

Mon Dieu! No one inspires shoe frenzy quite like Louboutin, who sat down like a rock star for four hours last Thursday afternoon. He's held the top post for hot French shoe cobbler, until a year ago, when Pierre Hardy, a favorite of French Voguettes, edged him out for a moment.

Kimberly Oser, PR Director at Barney's, told me the Fall styles, ordered to arrive in September, were completely off limits to photographers. A whole mess cracked open last season when a spy from Steve Madden shot the shoes in advance, then knocked them off. But to give you a teaser for autumn, black platform ankle boots with odd heels have reappeared, the platform pumps, and fringed black and fuschia boots: think Nancy Sinatra girls!

A bit of champagne and toe grazing at Barney's

CLICK BLUE LINE FOR MORE STORY AND BOXES FOR STYLES....

Summer styles pictured here included some high heeled sneakers and sandals slanted to the feminine, sling backs and trellis styles-- like the electric blue ones pictured --evident throughout.

Silber, "from the Five Towns," is an example of several wealthy women from Long Island, who surprisingly made up the bulk of the crowd, rather than Manhattanites. The mother and daughter teams may have taken a cue from "Gossip GIrl" since they bought $900 heels like drugstore candy.

Silber, however, let me in on another secret. "I put them on a shelf, exhibit them like pop art. You know." She says, daintily stepping into the elevator. "Just like Andy Warhol."