The new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton is bound to be a visual feast. It will come out on March 5th, and the stars include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. I looked up some of the visuals on the movie’s website, and they look amazing.

Now, with that in mind, maybe someone can explain this disastrous Alice in Wonderland themed window at Printemps.

A bit of background, Printemps is a big luxury department store in Paris. Powerful retailers, such as Printemps, sometimes ask brands to create special pieces for them, which can be exclusive limited edition collections or special display items, which will help the store to sell the brands.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how much I miss shopping in Europe...

So, Printemps has asked designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Chloé, Charles Anastase, and Haider Ackermann to design special pieces for their Alice in Wonderland-themed window displays. These are all designers that I respect and like, so I really cannot understand why the resulting window displays do not look very Alice in Wonderland, or fairy tale, or interesting at all. It basically looks like the designers, aside from Maison Martin Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood, couldn’t be bothered to actually make something for the window, so they took an old piece from an old collection and made up an Alice “story” to go along with it.

Seriously, how is any of this related to Alice in Wonderland? (By the way, the images and quotes below come from an article on Style.com, you can read more about it here.)

Chloe says: "“Running around careless and free in a romantic dress, falling down the rabbit hole, chasing time in a dreamlike state of mind, meeting unexpected characters with many tales to tell—sounds like many a girl’s night out!” I say: boring navy blue dress worn best on a "fat day."

Charles Anastase says: "“I went to John Tenniel’s original illustration of Alice for inspiration. She’s seated at a table having tea, and her dress looks much more asymmetrical and theatrical than that boring Walt Disney version.” I say: A white and blue pouffy dress does not equal Alice in Wonderland.

Haider Ackermann says: "“My favorite character is the Duchess, who at first seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen of Hearts. When I was designing this piece, I was seeing Alice running, escaping through the forest destroying her shiny dress." I say: This dress looks nothing like Alice in Wonderland, or the Duchess. In fact, that horrible rounded slit on the front makes the dress go from "interesting" to "scary."

Here are some of the better pieces.

Nicholas Kirkwood says: "“I think my favorite Alice character is the March Hare. You can see I’ve made his watch rather prominent. ...this time, I figured, why not just pile as much as I can on top?” I say: Nicholas Kirkwood has one shoe shape he has redone a million times, and its starting to get boring, but at least that one shoe is pretty cool. Especially with all that stuff piled onto it.

Maison Martin Margiela says: "“Alice’s silhouette is a blue upside-down dress with cage sleeve, as if she walked through the mirror and her dress completely reversed.” I say: This dress is beautiful, combining the fantasy of the fairy tale and the innovation of Maison Martin Margiela, and the colour is exactly the right shade of Alice blue.

Cartoon Alice image source.

It was announced last week that the Rodarte boots from the Autumn Winter 2009/2010 collection (designed by Nicholas Kirkwood) will only be available in Dover Street Market in London. I toyed wit the idea of calling to se if they had any left in my size, not that I can really afford them (they cost £2250) but they are so bloody fantastic it might just be worth it. In the end, I didn’t call, knowing full well that they were probably sold out before they even arrived in store.

But it does make me think…I find it a bit strange that Rodarte designs pretty nice dresses, but their shoes are AMAZING. It seems there is a major discrepancy between quality of shoe design and quality of dress design. No offence to the Mulleavy sisters, who are great designers, but their shoes are from another planet, a very rock’n'roll planet at that.

Rodarte AW09/10 boots designed by Nicholas Kirkwood (image from www.dazeddigital.com)

In fact, my dream shoes are a pair of the Louboutin spike stilettos from their Spring Summer 2009 collection, and I’ll take a pair of the matching gloves too.

Rodarte Shoes SS09 designer By Christian Louboutin (image from www.harpersbazaar.com)

Rodarte Shoes SS09 designer By Christian Louboutin (image from www.harpersbazaar.com)

The Rodarte Gloves (image from www.hintmag.com)