The shoes worn by the attendants of Fashion Week deserved a runway show of their own. In fact, if you kept your head down and focused on the floors of the tents throughout the week, you’d be suitably entertained. We’ve seen it all around here: from ballet flats, strappy cage heels, peep-toes, mary janes, over the knee-high boots and uggs, to wellies, pumps, riding boots, booties, sneakers, Docs, spectators and oxfords.

Because it’s Winter, neutrally toned boots and booties are the most popular form of footwear: from the sleekest flat equestrian styles, to the highest of platform wedges. Pumps were the next most popular form of footwear, with no shortage of red soled Christian Louboutins. There are definitely more heels than flats making their rounds here at fashion week, with three inch heels being the average height. There are also loads of women sporting five and six inch heels. I don’t know HOW they do it, but they can include their high heel walking skills in their resumes.

If I had to pick to most common shoe worn here at Fashion Week, it would be a four inch black stiletto bootie. Next would be a four inch black stiletto pump worn with hose. Some of the shoes are so pretty and beautifully made that I would gladly display them as works of art at home — a much better idea than using them for walking.

You’ve seen what I’ve been wearing on my feet to fashion week and I’ve felt just as fab. We love, love, love to walk extensively in cities, so my extra comfy one to two inch heeled boots suit me just fine as we charge through the streets of Manhattan in rain, snow and shine. What would you wear on your feet if you were here at New York Fashion Week?

The Perry Ellis show last night was great fun. The lighting dimmed, the music started, and out walked 28 flawless male models strutting their stuff. Perry Ellis has been around for a long time and I’ve always liked his sportswear. And it was fun to see blokes in flat shoes glide across the runway for a change.

The collection was fantastic. The outfits were totally wearable, with a few fun avant-garde additions, like waistcoats, bow ties, suspenders and cravats. The palette consisted of scrumptious combinations like black paired with navy, maroon paired with chocolate brown, charcoal paired with teal, and grey and white paired with tomato red. There were also several mono-chromatically toned outfits in grey and black which I liked just as much.

Quilted jackets made quite a big statement along with 70’s style leather blazers, embossed velvet blazers and biker jackets. There were a few things I wished I could order for Greg right now – like the cropped black jacket you see on the model above left. Now wouldn’t THAT be fun.

Leather pants, jeans, checked pants and sleek slacks were paired with striped knitwear and striped shirts. Patterns were often mixed, working in complete harmony. Suits featured quite strongly too, which makes me wish that more men would actually wear suits in fun ways. I guess that’s too much to ask in a world where, for the most part, blokes just want to wear jeans and shorts.

This has been the most commercial and mainstream collection we’ve seen so far. The Perry Ellis designer seemed pleased with his work too. And so he should be. This is good salable merchandise.

The Perry Ellis website currently has a video showing backstage action, an interview with the designer and the show itself on their front page.

It was a treat to meet up with fellow fashion blogger, the Budget Babe today. We ended up watching the Carlos Miele show virtually side by side and managed to catch up after the show too. We compared blogging notes, celebrity spottings, collection reviews and how we MUST wear comfortable shoes! Dianna is not only friendly, style savvy and sweet natured, but super pretty and just an all round fabulous gal. She looked stunning in her embroidered tunic, riding boots and killer smile. I’m looking forward to seeing her at the Tibi show tomorrow.

It’s a fast twenty minute walk to the tents at Bryant Park from our hotel so I need to be toasty and comfortable in sub-zero New York temperatures.Today I wore a black turtle neck under a sheath dress with a retro belted biker jacket. Rebelliously, I added a fuzzy lime green polka dot scarf, houndstooth hose and slouchy chestnut Fryes. Of course, I had to top that all off with an insulating puffer coat, which I took off once we were inside the tents.

The Carlos Miele show this morning was utterly splendid. It was packed to the brim with people so we felt very fortunate to be well positioned behind the seated audience near the end of the runway. We were just close enough to capture the intricate technical work of the garments, soaking up the brilliance of every pleat, dart and stitch. The fabrics were lusciously drapey and substantial and I was in my element appreciating the luxury of first class couture.

No prizes for guessing what colour was most worn by the audience. Although, being a morning show, a few people branched out to wear grey — and drum roll please — some even added pops of colour. A few others hauled out animal print coats and accessories. All in all, this has been the most colour rich day at Fashion Week.

Carlos Miele’s garments were wearable and I very much enjoyed the aesthetics. They were clean and innovative, but somehow pretty classic too. It made for a dazzling combination.

The collection was beautifully colourful and it worked well on the runway. There were strong statements of tomato red matched with bright purple – a combination I’m incorporating into my wardrobe as soon as possible. A bright royal blue and rich emerald green appeared in a handful of the garments, which was quite delicious too. Skirts and dresses were both short and on the knee. Paperbag waist detailing was strong, so watch out for more of that this Autumn. Slacks were very tapered, but sleeves were voluminous both in shoulder poof and in the form of under arm batwings.

There was also lots of zipper trim, sequin and pleat detailing on skirts and dresses. But the best part about the Carlos Miele collection was the superb use of colour blocking. It’s not an easy sewing technique and it was flawlessly executed with what I imagine to be super slippery fabric. His colour blocked garments looked both strong and graphic, yet soft and feminine. Very fab.

As much as I love colour and it’s effective impact on the runway, my favourite item in this collection was a short, black, spiders web sheath dress with flesh toned lining (you can see it in the picture above). It would work in my wardrobe with a pile of pearls, a tailored tuxedo jacket and red shoes, so I’ll take one of those please.

At the end of every show the designer appears for a few seconds for some well deserved applause after six months of hard work preparing their collection for this ten minute spectacle. We thought Carlos was particularly humble in the way he acknowledged the recognition.

There are several photographers outside the tents snapping pictures of people at Fashion Week. A rather hip and dashing photographer asked if he could take a picture of me today and I obliged. Not too shabby.