Time for Texture

Shoes, an accessory category showing explosive growth in all directions, continue to be a platform for innovation, with texture as a major theme moving into Spring and Fall. Diego Dolcini's truly skin-like ballet flats of printed suede with a sophisticated gloss treatment take the meaning of supple to another dimension, while Christian Louboutin's painted python stilettos layer snakeskin with bright pops of fluorescent color worked into the material to create a 3-D effect.

Due Farina's "wet satin" debuts this Spring as well. An idea stumbled upon when slogging through a rainy Milan day in flats, the duo's new design uses woven satin ribbon coated with a clear PVC that renders the sumptuous material waterproof. Always the innovator, Giuseppe Zanotti uses texture in intricate heel treatments for Fall—sculptural pewter winds its way up the heel in an ornate branch-like pattern and cameos are inset in the heart of the stiletto heel. Slip on a pair of these, and even as you're walking away, you can't help but make a statement.

—Meghan Cleary