When you’re sitting front row at your 4,756th runway show of any given fashion season, the smallest of details can sometimes pass you by: a sculptured necklace depicting two women scissoring? Or the handbag crafted to resemble a cable car? Blink and you might just have missed them during AW19.

One person who has his eye trained firmly on the finer points (and more specifically, the floor) is the anonymous founder of @larslala – the IG account documenting some of the best, wildest, and most radical footwear both on the catwalk and off.

From Y/Project’s thigh-high statement Uggs and gold moon boots courtesy of Jeremy Scott, right through to Kira Goodey’s vagina shoes and those Xander Zhou monster feet: good, bad, or downright ugly, you’ll find them all plastered across @larslala’s carefully curated grid. And that’s before we even get started on all the making-a-break-for-it baby toes.

Now, with the AW19 shows having drawn to a close last week, we enlisted the fashion journalist behind @larslala to select his favourite footwear styles for the upcoming season. Strap in (literally, when it comes to at least a couple of them).  

Y/PROJECT

“How can you not love Glenn Martens’ AW19 Y/Project boots? Not only is the construction mind-blowingly simple, they have a visual impact unmatched by any other designer this season. With many designers better classified as stylists these days, given it’s really not that hard to copy a garment from the local thrift store, Martens continuously pushes new silhouettes and I, for one, am all the way here for it.”

GMBH

“What I appreciate most about GmbH is that, on top of producing conceptual but wearable clothes, founders Benjamin Alexander Huseby and Serhat Isik constantly highlight and comment on socio-political issues including racism and homophobia. They consistently challenge ideas on what was deemed ‘ugly’ by the white society they grew up in. You can imagine my excitement when I saw the extended nose heel they presented at their AW19 show: it’s a play on the traditional Pakistani chappal and the myth that all Middle Easterners wear long-nosed shoes. Gorgeous!”

SAINT LAURENT

“Can you imagine, as an old raver – and by old, I’m referring to my age and not the fact that I used to rave, because I still v much do – what it does to you when pairs and pairs and pairs of fluorescent, UV-glowing heels storm down the runway past you? It makes me immediately go ‘unce, unce, unce, unce, unce, unce’ and I love it. In fact, Anthony Vaccarello has been killing the shoe game since his first season at the legendary house: not due to the fact he’s putting out anything particularly new, but because he seems to know exactly what people are craving at any given moment. Bravo!”

VERSACE

“I wasn’t sold on Versace this season, but there were still at least a few items I was strangely attracted to: especially those bloody red, strappy stilettos that featured diva-esque levels of bling. I loved how extra they were, like the shoes of a Roman warrior princess from the 22nd century, Please, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in-between, if you decide to purchase these divas, do NOT wear them with a basic pair of blue jeans. They deserve so much better!”

MARCO DE VINCENZO  

“I’ve never been a fan of the whole sock-shoe moment. To be honest, the only ones I ever liked were Matthieu Blazy’s sock Tabis for Maison Martin Margiela Artisanal. But if ever I were to acquire a pair that wasn’t those, it would be a pair that a woman with a knack for dishevelled glamour might wear on the way back from a twelve-hour bender that I’d want to get my hands on. Something I think Marco de Vincenzo achieved when it came to these amazing stilettos. Love!”

@larslala