MUMBAI (Reuters) Bollywood struck gold in 2011, revving up lacklustre box offices in India with help from its leading men who wooed audiences back to cinemas after a dismal 2010.
“Bodyguard”, in which Khan plays a personal security guard to a rich man’s daughter and ends up falling in love with her, was the most successful Bollywood film, raking in more than 1.5 billion rupees ($28 million) at domestic box offices.
The solid performance contrasted sharply to the previous year when there were hardly any hits.
Other themes were successful, too.
But widely-hyped movies like superhero film “Ra.One” were a let-down.
Big studios like Reliance and UTV also have changed their business models, preferring to co-produce films rather than acquire them after completion. Last year, Reliance suffered losses after two big-ticket acquisitions, Mani Ratnam’s “Raavan” and Hrithik Roshan-starrer “Kites” flopped at box offices.
“Audiences have always loved the dilemmas of the hero, a little bit of action, some drama and some romance,” Lamba said. “We had a lot of that this year.”
Both “Bodyguard” and “Singham” were panned by critics but loved by audiences. And both featured strong central characters, harkening back to the 1980s and early ’90s in Bollywood when films were centred on the hero and his defeat of a villain in a battle of good versus evil.
“This year, all our films have been co-productions or our own productions and we have seen the successes,” Lamba said.
“We prefer to be creatively involved from the beginning of the project rather than coming in at the end in an acquisition scenario.”
Indian audiences also warmed up to Hollywood blockbusters including “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ and “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” — something that wasn’t seen until just a few years ago due mainly to Bollywood’s dominance of the box office.
“These days, the box office collections of good Hollywood films can rival those of a Bollywood film,” said Sunil Punjabi, chief executive of the Cinemax chain of multiplexes.
“The Adventures of Tintin,” which was released along with Ranbir Kapoor’s “Rockstar” in November, made more than 70 million rupees its opening weekend
(Editing by Elaine Lies and Bob Tourtellotte)
“Audiences and filmmakers have gone back and discovered stories that are close to our Indian roots,” said Sanjeev Lamba, Chief executive of Reliance Entertainment, which produced two of the year’s biggest blockbusters — “Bodyguard” and “Singham”.
“HARRY POTTER” HOT; “RA.ONE” NOT
“Balaji Motion Pictures made ‘The Dirty Picture’ at a budget of less than 300 million rupees but have chosen themes and subjects which are interesting, and (they) publicised their films so well that audiences have felt compelled to watch them,” said industry analyst Vajir Singh.
Offbeat films like “The Dirty Picture”, based on the life of a soft-core porn star, proved to be sleeper hits and took industry analysts by surprise. Together with the likes of “Singham” and “Bodyguard”, these smaller films proved audiences have an appetite for both mass market and niche-oriented work.
“It is not that more people are watching movies, but that the same audience is watching more movies,” said Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a firm that specialises in film market research.
In spite of a publicity blitzkrieg, actor Shah Rukh Khan’s film did not live up to expectations with around 1.2 billion rupees ($22 million) in net box office. That was just a bit more than its official budget of a billion rupees. Industry estimates put the film’s cost at over 1.5 billion rupees.
“Singham” told the story of a right-minded police officer who stands up to a corrupt politician and was accompanied by romance, drama and high-octane action.
Aside from that, for the most part, Bollywood managed to keep its purse strings in check, with production houses learning that budgeting a film right is half the battle.
Domestic revenues hit 19.25 billion rupees ($363.2 million) this year, up from 14.5 billion rupees in 2010, and an unprecedented four films crossed the billion rupee milestone. Two of those blockbusters starred actor Salman Khan.
A straight-up action picture may sound unusual coming from Steven Soderbergh, but as he’s repeatedly demonstrated throughout his career, he’s keen to experiment with every genre imaginable. And if you look closely at his latest, “Haywire,” you’ll find it reveals glimmers of some of his greatest hits.
It’s a revenge thriller like “The Limey” (and comes from the same screenwriter, Lem Dobbs). It features a color-coded palette scheme to correspond with each new location in this globe-trotting tale, like “Traffic.” It has a `70s-style aesthetic sensibility reminiscent of “The Informant!” It boasts an all-star cast like Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” movies, “Full Frontal” and, most recently, “Contagion.” But at its center is an actress who’d never appeared in a major feature film before, like “The Girlfriend Experience” and “Bubble.”
So since we’re in the midst of making comparisons, we’ll just say that “Haywire” feels like minor Soderbergh: zippy, hugely entertaining and well-crafted as always (since he once again serves as his own cinematographer and editor), but not one of his more important films in the broad scheme of things.
It does, however, mark the auspicious film debut of MMA superstar Gina Carano as special-ops bad-ass Mallory Kane. Carano had never acted before, and not only did she do all her own stunts, she had to do them in a way that she wouldn’t injure her male co-stars, including Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender and Channing Tatum. Her dialogue delivery may seem a bit stiff and she has acknowledged that Soderbergh made some tweaks to her voice in post-production but she has tremendous presence: an intriguing mix of muscular power and eye-catching femininity.
Mallory works for a private contractor that performs secret missions for the U.S. government. Her latest required her and her team to rescue a Chinese journalist who’d been kidnapped and was being held captive in Barcelona. The mission itself (pretty much) went down as planned, but afterward she finds she’s been set up. Now, her task is to figure out who’s double-crossed her and why.
All of this takes place out of chronological order as it hops around between upstate New York, Barcelona, Washington, Dublin, the scrub-brushed buttes of New Mexico and a Mexican beach at sunset. (That last location is one of the most beautiful, with the warm, jagged rocks serving as a striking backdrop for one of the film’s most intense fights.) Mallory tells her story to the poor schmo whose car she has to borrow (played by Michael Angarano) for escape; it’s intentionally disorienting, but that’s part of the fun.
Among the excellent cast, McGregor plays Mallory’s obviously slimy boss, with whom she shares some sort of nebulous romantic history. Tatum is her partner on the Barcelona job, who may or may not be trustworthy. Fassbender is the British agent with whom she’s asked to team up on a follow-up mission; their scenes smolder with an old-school James Bond sense of glamour and intrigue, as well as danger. Michael Douglas plays Mallory’s government contact and the one person she seems to be able to trust aside from her father (Bill Paxton) who, like her, is a former Marine. And Antonio Banderas is her Spanish connection, a role he plays in almost as cartoonish a fashion as his “Puss in Boots” character.
Regardless of the setting, the opponent or their motives, Soderbergh is smart enough to emphasize Carano’s strengths. He lets the elaborate fight scenes play out lets us see every kick, punch and body slam without a lot of needless edits and even without any music. The battles provide their own rhythm, and afterward you may feel as if you’ve been worked over as well. But in a good way.
“Haywire,” a Relativity Media release, is rated R for some violence. Running time: 93 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 No one under 17 admitted.
NEW YORK (Reuters) The apocalyptic psychological drama “Melancholia” was named the year’s best film on Saturday by the National Society of Film Critics, which chose its star Kirsten Dunst as best actress and Brad Pitt as best actor for the baseball drama “Moneyball” as well as “The Tree of Life.”
Lars von Trier lost out on the best director award for his work on “Melancholia” to Terrence Malick for “The Tree of Life,” a mystical period piece which also won the best cinematography prize.
But the big win by “Melancholia” bolstered the offbeat film’s chances for the upcoming Academy Awards, which will announce nominees later this month.
Set against the backdrop of a country wedding, the dark film explores the strained relationship of two sisters, one a bride played by Dunst, while a strange planet threatens to collide with Earth, wiping out all traces of human existence.
Pitt, already a strong contender for the Oscars, was honored for his roles as Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball” as well as a strict father in “The Tree of Life.”
Critics’ awards are important in helping build momentum heading toward the Academy Awards,wholesale Ed hardy shoes, or Oscars, which are the world’s top film awards given out on the final Sunday in February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The NSFC includes 58 members from major newspapers in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago and other cities as well as from Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker and newspapers The Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix.
The group’s awards for best supporting performances went to Albert Brooks, who played a small-time hood in the drama “Drive,” and Jessica Chastain, who was honored for performances in “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter” and “The Help.”
Both Brooks and Chastain have been honored by other critics groups in early awards this season.
Several highly touted films, most notably “The Artist,” considered a front-runner for the Oscars, “The Descendants” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” were shut out, although Scorsese was a close second in voting for best director.
The award for best foreign language film was won by the Iranian film “A Separation,” about a couple struggling with the decision about whether or not to leave their home country. The film also won the prize for best screenplay.
The film critics named Werner Herzog’s documentary “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” a 3D movie about a cave in southern France, as the year’s best nonfiction film.
Ken Jacobs won the experimental film award for “Seeking the Monkey King.”
The critics also announced “film heritage” awards to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for its recent Vincente Minnelli retrospective; to Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Melies’ “A Trip to the Moon”; to the Museum of Modern Art for its Weimar Cinema retrospective; to Flicker Alley for the box set “Landmarks of Early Soviet Film; and to Criterion Collection for its two-disc DVD package “The Complete Jean Vigo.”
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Eric Walsh)
LONDON (Reuters) Never heard of Milk Music? That may be about to change after the unsigned punk rockers from Olympia, Washington appeared on a leading music magazine’s acts-to-watch list.
Rising stars like Lana Del Rey, A$AP Rocky and Howler are also tipped to make it big this year and beyond as pop pickers and record labels search the airwaves for hitmakers of tomorrow.
With guitar bands and solo male artists featuring so prominently in a series of new music polls published at the start of the year, chart-topping divas like Lady Gaga, Adele and Beyonce could see their crowns slip.
And once again the United States looks like setting the pace, leaving Britain, the other global music powerhouse, playing catch-up.
“From doing this issue what I’ve realized is that there is a really wide scope of stuff out there,” said Matt Wilkinson, new music editor at British music magazine NME who has just compiled a list of 100 bands to watch in 2012.
“In the last 12 months the United States has been on top of its game in terms of guitar bands and indie music so I kind of hope and expect the UK to react to that this year,” he told Reuters. “We are in a bit of a lull at the moment over here.”
One leading female act set for stardom in 2012 is Del Rey, real name Elizabeth Grant, an American who caused a stir last year with her haunting YouTube hit “Video Games.”
Britain’s NME music magazine decided not to feature her in its 2012 survey because it felt she was already established — in fact many acts on this month’s “next big thing” lists are well on their way to fame and fortune.
In Del Rey’s case, she is signed to Interscope, part of the world’s biggest music company Universal, and releases an album, “Born to Die,” at the end of the month.
Some question the level to which her image has been manufactured for mainstream success and question whether Del Rey can sustain her early success.
“The future for Lana Del Rey feels a little uncertain,” said Alexis Petridis, music critic for the Guardian newspaper which voted Video Games the best song of 2011.
“Whether Video Games turns out to be the one truly remarkable thing about her, or a portent of greatness to come is a moot point.”
For NME’s Wilkinson, Harlem-raised rapper Azealia Banks is a potential 2012 breakout.
“We’re going massive on her,” he said. “She’s great and totally exciting. But will she sell as many records as Adele? Probably not.”
A lack of radio play for the famously foul-mouthed musician could be a barrier, he added.
Canada’s Claire Boucher, also known as Grimes, released an album in 2010 and was on the Guardian’s “New band of the day” column as long ago as March, but her brand of dark electro pop could make a splash this year.
Across the Atlantic, British “girl power” is expected to come from Londoner Lianne La Havas,Wholesale Ed hardy, who appears both on the BBC’s “Sound of 2012″ poll and MTV’s “Brand New For 2012″ list.
The BBC also championed Ren Harvieu as a possible heir to Adele, while the dark pop of Charli XCX and soulful sounds of Delilah (Paloma Stoecker) have MTV excited.
HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS
Balancing the picture for 2012, several solo male artists are also tipped for the top.
British soul musician Michael Kiwanuka topped BBC’s annual poll on Friday, ending a run of four consecutive years in which single females claimed the prize starting with Adele in 2008.
In second place came Frank Ocean, the U.S. singer-songwriter who has already collaborated with pop royalty like Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West.
NME predicts he will be the “true breakout star” of the Odd Future hip-hop collective.
New Yorker and rising hip-hop star A$AP Rocky famously signed a $3 million record deal with Sony Music last year, nearly half of which reportedly will go towards funding his own record label.
Underground Chicago singer Willis Earl Beal, who until recently was leaving CDs and fliers lying around randomly, has been snapped up by XL Recordings, Adele’s label, and they plan to release his debut album “Acousmatic Sorcery” in March.
British teenager Conor Maynard has been likened by MTV to Justin Bieber, while the music channel called Angel (Sirach Charles) “quite possibly the UK pop and R & B industry’s best kept secret.”
Briton King Krule (Archy Marshall) is another “boy wonder,” although his rich voice and wordly-wise opinions belie his years, while compatriots Dot Rotten and King Charles make at least one of the new artist lists.
BANDS ON THE RISE
Guitar bands and indie music in general have been on the decline in recent years, but they put in a strong showing in the latest surveys.
Minneapolis rockers Howler have been likened to the Vaccines and Strokes and appear first in NME’s 2012 list.
DZ Deathrays’ music, described as “sleazy, sexy, thrash-punk robo-rock,” has rung out from stages in their native Australia for more than three years, but this year they aim to conquer Europe and produce a debut album.
Milk Music have so far resisted record executives’ approaches and remain independent, while London quintet Spector hit the road in March to support Florence + The Machine.
Scandinavia is represented by Swedish electro pop duo Niki & The Dove on the BBC poll and compatriots Icona Pop feature in
NME.
In France, names to look out for include Francois & The Atlas Mountains, Apes and Horses, The Bewitched Bands, Concrete Knives and Stuck In the Sound.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon, editing by Paul Casciato)
LOS ANGELES George Clooney’s “The Descendants,” Brad Pitt’s “Moneyball,” Kristen Wiig’s “Bridesmaids” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” are among nominees for the Writers Guild of America Awards.
Clooney’s family drama “The Descendants” earned an adapted-screenplay nomination Thursday for director Alexander Payne and co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Pitt’s sports tale “Moneyball” is up for the same prize for writers Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.
Zaillian has a second adapted-screenplay nomination for director David Fincher’s thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.
“Bridesmaids” star Wiig shared an original-screenplay nomination for her wedding comedy, which she co-wrote with Annie Mumolo. Director Allen also was nominated for original screenplay for his romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris.”
Other contenders for original screenplay: Will Reiser for the cancer story “50/50,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen; Tom McCarthy for the family tale “Win Win,” featuring Paul Giamatti; and Diablo Cody for the dark comedy “Young Adult,” with Charlize Theron.
Also nominated for adapted screenplay: writer-director Tate Taylor for the Deep South drama “The Help,” with Viola Davis, Emma Stone and Octavia Spencer; and John Logan for filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s Paris adventure “Hugo,” featuring Ben Kingsley and child stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Asa Butterfield.
Some acclaimed films, including the silent movie “The Artist,” were ineligible because they were not made under the guild’s contract guidelines.
Nominated for documentary screenplay: Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega, “Better This World”; Marshall Curry and Matthew Hamachek,Discount Burberry wholesale, “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”; Patricio Guzman, “Nostalgia for the Light”; Wim Wenders, “Pina”; Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich and Leonard Retel Helmrich, “Position Among the Stars”; and Manish Pandey, “Senna.”
Honors from Hollywood trade groups such as the writers, actors and directors guilds help sort out likely contenders for the Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Jan. 24.
Writers Guild winners will be announced Feb. 19.
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Online:
http://www.wga.org
OGDEN, Utah Search warrant in hand, a team of bulletproof vest-wearing officers rapped on the door of a small, red-brick Utah house, identifying themselves as police. When no one responded, authorities say, the officers burst inside.
That’s when the gunfire erupted.
When it was over Wednesday night, a 7-year veteran officer was dead and five of his colleagues were wounded,Replica Bape jeans, some critically. The suspect, an Army veteran whose estranged father said suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have been self-medicating with marijuana, was injured.
Now, as the city tries to grapple with the outburst of violence and the loss of one of its officers, investigators are trying to determine how the raid as part of a drug investigation could have gone so terribly wrong.
“It’s a very, very sad day,” an emotional Ogden Police Chief Wayne Tarwater said Thursday.
A candlelight vigil for the fallen officers is planned for Thursday night at an Ogden amphitheater.
Police declined to reveal details of the shooting besides a general timeline, citing the ongoing investigation.
They would not say, for instance, whether the shootout took place entirely inside the home or spilled out into the yard, how many shots were fired and how many guns were recovered.
There will be several investigations, including one by Ogden police and another outside probe by prosecutors.
Among the questions that authorities will try to answer was whether the officers, in the chaotic moments upon entering the house, may have inadvertently fired on each other.
Police said the warrant was based on information about possible drug activity, but would not say what officers were specifically looking for inside Matthew David Stewart’s home, which sits across the street from a Mormon church meeting house.
Stewart, 37, was in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, authorities said. He does not have an attorney yet.
Utah court records show Stewart’s criminal history includes only a 2005 conviction for a class B misdemeanor traffic violation operating a vehicle without insurance. A judge found him guilty after a bench trial and ordered him to pay a $350 fine.
State officials also placed a pair of tax liens on Stewart last August.
Stewart served in the Army from July 1994 to December 1998, spending a year based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and nearly three years stationed in Germany, Army records show.
He held a post as a communications equipment specialist, earning an Army Achievement Medal and a National Defense Service Medal. Both are given for completing active service, although they don’t indicate exceptional acts of valor.
Stewart’s father, Michael Stewart, said his son works a night shift at a local Walmart and may have been sleeping when police arrived.
“When they kicked in the door, he probably felt threatened,” said Michael Stewart, who has been estranged from his son for more than a year, but keeps track of him through his two other sons.
The elder Stewart said his son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression and may have been treating it with small amounts of pot. He said he believes his son may have been growing the weed himself.
He said he didn’t believe his son owned any automatic weapons and that the family is upset by what happened. “This is my son’s problem and we’re grieving for him and all of the officers,” Michael Stewart said. “I’m dead sick about it.”
Weber County Attorney Dee Smith said it wasn’t yet clear what charges Stewart might face once the shooting investigation concludes.
“But it appears right now, with the information we have, that we have an aggravated murder as well as a number of other attempted aggravated murders,” Smith said, choking back tears.
Aggravated murder is a capital crime and, if convicted, Stewart could face the death penalty.
The officer killed, Jared Francom, was with the Ogden police. He leaves behind two daughters, aged 3 and 5, and his wife of seven years, Erin.
“She’s upset, but she’s hanging in there,” Frisby said of his daughter. “I can only describe her as a rock.”
Joining the narcotics strike force had long been Francom’s dream job, according to his father-in-law, John Frisby. Francom, 30, had worked as a part-time patrol officer and took security jobs on the side until he was finally chosen for the select group.
It was a “big honor,” Frisby said when reached by telephone at his home in Henderson, Nev. “He was good at it.”
By mid-day Thursday, more than 1,000 friends and strangers had expressed their support and gratitude for Francom and his family on a memorial Facebook page with prayers, poems and other message. Some posters swapped out their profile pictures for a black logo with a blue stripe representing fallen officers.
Authorities said the conditions of the officers ranged from serious to critical. They are Ogden officers Shawn Grogan, Kasey Burrell and Michael Rounkles, Weber County sheriff’s Sgt. Nate Hutchinson and Roy officer Jason VanderWarf.
Kevin Burrell, Kasey Burrell’s father, said his son was shot in the head. A seven-year veteran of the police force, the younger Burrell was sedated, but appears to be improving, his father said.
On Wednesday, witnesses said they heard three quick pops followed by a two- to three-minute pause, then lots of gunfire and officers yelling at someone to “put your hands up,” in the backyard.
Outside Stewart’s house on Thursday armed SWAT officers clothed in camouflage remained on guard as police continued their search of the property. The yard was taped off and dotted with numbered evidence markers.
Residents said they were shocked to hear there was any drug activity in the area or a shootout on their street.
“This has always been a quiet neighborhood. We’ve been here for 11 years,” said Andrew Mair, who said his wife hid in the couple’s basement in fear when the gunfire rang out. “I’ve never heard anything crazy going on.”
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) U2 is No. 1 when it comes to touring. The band had the highest-grossing tour both in North America and worldwide in 2011.
Bono, the Edge and company grossed $156 million in North America on the strength of 1.7 million tickets sold, according to Pollstar, which covers the concert industry. They grossed $231.9 million worldwide off 2.39 million tickets.
Rounding out the top five highest-grossing touring acts in North America were Taylor Swift ($97.7 million),wholesale Burberry bags, Kenny Chesney ($84.6 million), Lady Gaga ($63.7 million) and Bon Jovi ($57.1 million).
As for the worldwide top five, U2 were followed by the reunited Take That ($224 million), Bon Jovi ($148.8 million), Swift ($104.2 million) and Roger Waters ($103.6 million). Tickets on U2’s 360 Degrees tour sold for an average of $97.15 worldwide and $91.67 in North America.
The year’s top 25 biggest tours grossed a combined $2.1 billion worldwide, which is roughly the same as in 2010. In North America, there was a 4 percent dip among the top 25, which grossed $1.19 billion.
Still, the entire concert industry had a 15 percent increase in ticket sales compared with 2010, despite 20 percent fewer reported shows, according to Billboard.
U2’s success in 2011 was bolstered by the rescheduling of postponed concert dates from 2010 due to a back injury frontman Bono suffered that year.
On Our Radar Aquazzura
Photo: Courtesy of Aquazzura
Edgardo Osorio, the designer behind the new shoe collection Aquazzura, knows the luxury market. He’s spent ten years working with Salvatore Ferragamo, René Caovilla, and Roberto Cavalli, where most recently he’s been directing all of the label’s shoes, on and off the runway. But he also knows that not everyone can manage the luxury price point and that the market sorely needs options between the mass and the luxe. The Colombian-born, Florence-based designer, who was raised between Miami and London, aims to fill the gap. His shoes come in cashmere suede and baby calf, tricked out with anklet-chain details and adjustable-strap closures for a perfect fit, but top out at around $450 a pair. No wonder Barneys has already expressed interest.
—Marina Larroude
The Doctor (And Her Bags) Are In
For her latest collection, Olympia Le-Tan checked herself into Paris’ Museum of the History of Medicine, a nineteenth-century gem tucked upstairs at the Descartes Medical School in Saint-Germain, the site of her presentation Thursday night. It was a telling venue. “People around me were taking strange medications and I sensed a disease vibe in the air,” Le-Tan said. So she and her team set to work assembling first-aid-kit carrying cases, and copying classic-edition covers of psychology tomes and the great novels of madness, drugs, and disease, including Wuthering Heights, Mrs. Dalloway, Valley of the Dolls, and Erich Segal’s tearjerker, Love Story. She called the collection Still Ill, after a song by her beloved Smiths. But if she lamented the persistence of sickness, she offered a few palliatives, too. There were pillbox clutches of “Brozac” (”Which will help your friends put up with you,” she wrote in a collection statement) and “Wiagra” (you can imagine), as well as for Olympia-brand petroleum jelly. And she couldn’t resist styling a few syringe hair clips and nurse uniforms her first foray into clothing. (Her sister, Cleo Le-Tan, modeled one.) These were tucked in between the antique scalpels and other strange tools of medicine’s past in the museum’s display cases as André Saraiva, Olivier Zahm, Garance Doré, and Catherine Baba nibbled Red Cross cupcakes and took each other’s temperatures.
—Rebecca Voight
Photo: Courtesy of Olympia Le-Tan
- Material: Leather
- Sole: Synthetic
- 2.5-inch heel
The designer pumps that the ladies on the runway were wearing average at about $775. I decided after the show that I was going to play a little hooky from work and go buy an affordable pair.
I came across these Desano heeled booties at Aldo, and they’re on sale for only $80! The height and the heel — that is actually quite slimming — really work here.
I can see these going with everything. You can pair with florals, racy grey denim, pencil skirts, whatever. Now, here’s hoping they can lead me to a better mood when i look down at my feet the rest of winter!
Buy it here.
By Sasha Charnin Morrison for UsMagazine.com. To read more of the Recessionista blog, click here.
PRODUCT DETAILS
Hot off the fall-winter collection is the show-stopping bootie, a sure hit with any style of mini dress or slim-fit pants. This leather option is highlighted by allover snakeskin print, pointed toe and concealed platform.
It’s been a long, cold fashion week in New York City, and I’m tired of wearing big, clunky boots. I started to fixate on the shoes in the front row of the Max Azria show yesterday — hot, high-heeled bootie pumps from Brian Atwood and YSL!
