The Oscars of fashion is the annual Vogue-sponsored red carpet fete for the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute. But this year's show "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity" happens to  run concurrently with an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum "American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection featuring a beautifully curated 85 masterpieces of couture. Along with Elsa Schiaparelli pieces like the surrealist plastic disk necklace crawling with toy insects ( below left) and elegant, here-and-now-looking pieces by Norman Norell (below right), the show has an interesting focus on the forties-a pivotal time in American fashion. Couture customers stranded stateside by Germans in Paris discovered a talented group of American women designers. Claire McCardell, Bonnie Cashin, Valentina (whose designs were worn in films by Garbo and Kathryn Hepburn),Carolyn Schnurer and Vera Maxwell had the business incentive and freedom to express a "national identity' with their designs. Enamored of Schiaparelli's surrealist sportswear like divided tennis skirts and one of the first (if not the first) pant suits they created clothes that broke with the formality and rigor of French fashion.  

I have always loved the spectator shoes and sandals of summer. Any graphic combination of chalk white paired with bright color and you've got my attention. Not to mention the appeal of the Chanel ballet flat. The feminine proportion and that black cap toe have a 'forever ingénue' quality that appeals to the inner Bardot in ever woman.  For summer I've been spotting many two-tone and color blocked riffs on the theme that are more cheeky than classic. How better to spark neutrals like white, khaki and black in your wardrobe? And in a season of pattern mixes, wearing a print something with a color-blocked shoe (that share at least one color in common) looks style savvy. 

When rainy days meet hot weather women face a real style challenge. Few things are more uncomfortable than bare feet and legs shod in rubber rain boots. A less sticky but unsavory alternative can be seen when legions of flip-flop-wearing girls navigate the soaking streets of New York. Ack!