Paris is a state of mind and style for fashion bloggers Isabelle Thomas and Frédérique Veysset. They successfully distilled this frame of mind in their first bestseller, 2013’s “Paris Street Style: A Guide to Effortless Chic.” The duo employed a combination of how-tos, interviews with celebrities and big visuals to achieve their goal.

 

Now Thomas and Veysset go from macro to micro with their newest book, “Paris Street Style: Shoes” (Abrams Image, New York, 2015, 193 pages), which was done under the direction of Caroline Levesque and used illustrations by Clement Dezels and Veysset’s photographs; Willard Wood translated this edition from French to English. The book’s focus, however, goes beyond Paris.

 

As the book’s title points out, this book is all about women’s shoes, with Thomas and Veysset approaching the topic from different angles. The most essential parts of “Paris Street Style: Shoes” are the sections which give tips on when and how to wear specific kinds of footwear: heels, ballet flats, sparkly shoes, sneakers, sandals, boots, pumps, guys’ shoes and so on.

 

There are micro-sections dealing with miscellaneous footwear; the most interesting one is on shoes women love to hate, such as cowboys boots, mules and clogs. These portions are illustrated heavily with Veysset’s photos.

 

Heavyweights

 

But also interesting are the many Q&A interviews with some of fashion footwear’s heavyweights, such as Christian Louboutin, Olivier Jault, Mathilde Toulot, Pierre Hardy, Walter Steiger, Michel Vivien, Antoine Agulhon, Philippe Atienza, Sandra Choi and Inès de la Fressange. The interviews offer a broad range of viewpoints regarding the all-encompassing idea of beautiful shoes. Louboutin, for example, says, “Femininity is interesting; women are right to make use of it.”

 

“Paris Street Style: Shoes” is immensely helpful, as Thomas and Veysset also offer up chapters on how to take care of your shoes—as well as how to take care of your feet. The prose is playful and snappy—never does the book feel like a manual. Instead, it’s like hitting up some really fashionable friends for life-saving shoe advice.

 

Beyond the surprisingly sobering observations about pantyhose and socks, for example, “Paris Street Style: Shoes” declares certain things to be “Indisputable, Irrefutable Fashion Faux Pas” such as leaving the sticker on your sole, badly trimmed toenails and even bad knock-offs. How detailed does the advice get? You should avoid “a long pant paired with flat soles” because “it makes you look shorter,” or “a mid-length skirt with pumps” because it looks “too grandmotherly.”

 

If you liked those tips, then this is really the book for you. “Paris Street Style: Shoes” works because of the diversity of information it makes available through a friendly, flashy package. Don’t be fooled by that conservative cover. This stylish and sensible book is trade size, but inside is more like a compact coffee-table book, with full-color glossy pages and knockout images.

 

If you’re really crazy about footwear, Isabelle Thomas and Frédérique Veysset’s “Paris Street Style: Shoes” is pretty much a can’t-miss buy, regardless of whatever shoes you actually wear.

 

Available at National Book Store.