a little love...

{rouge note: I know this is totally off topic, but I just can’t help myself. Last week was design your own fabrics, this week is design your own shoes. How incredible is that?!? A little love on Valentine’s day, I’d say! (thanks again www.springwise.com). I’ll be back next week with more from the home staging and redesign world, but until then…get to work on creating your dreamy shoes! I'm thinking red...}

Sydney-based online shoe retailer Shoes of Prey (www.shoesofprey.com) is directing the design-your-own trend towards stylish, custom-made women's shoes.

Launched in October, Shoes of Prey's simple, online design tool puts bespoke shoes just a few clicks away for women wanting to design their dream shoes and have them hand-crafted to match their requirements. Customers choose the style, heel type, heel height, adornments and colours, and select from raw materials including calf skin, snake skin, fish skin, silk and more, which makes for a near infinite number of possible combinations.

Prices range from AUD 195 for ballet flats to AUD 300 for 4½-inch heels. International shipping is available, and the shoes take about six weeks to arrive. The service is backed by a generous returns policy which guarantees that if the shoes don't fit, Shoes of Prey will remake them until they do; and if the customer doesn't like the design, they can send the shoes back for a full refund or have a new design made for them free of charge.

design your own fabric

{rouge note: we learned about an interesting new company this week that makes custom fabrics for you…it’s eco-friendly and it’s all done online (thanks www.springwise.com!). Check it out…}

Consumers have already shown that they're interested in designing their own dresses, T-shirts and duvets—to name just a few—so it's not surprising to see the trend spread from finished goods to the raw materials that underlie them. Recently one of our spotters alerted us to another design-your-own fabric opportunity in the United States.

North Carolina-based Spoonflower (www.spoonflower.com) lets users design and print their own fabrics for just USD 18 per yard with no minimum order; custom swatches cost USD 5. After a closed beta launch in May, the Spoonflower community now boasts more than 10,000 crafters around the world who upload their own designs and use fabric to make quilts, clothes, pillows, dolls, blankets, handbags, framed textile art and more.

When Spoonflower comes out of beta, it plans to allow fabric designers to sell their fabrics on the site, it says. In the meantime, users are selling their creations on Etsy, as well as participating in Spoonflower's Fabric-of-the-Week contest, the winners of which are chosen through community voting. Winning fabrics are offered for sale for exactly one week through Spoonflower's own Etsy shop, and their designers are rewarded with five yards of free fabric.

It's not yet clear how Spoonflower's marketplace feature will work, but allowing users to earn cash for their creations is critical. If there's anything Generation C(ontent) consumers love more than the ability to design it themselves, it's the ability to be compensated for their output. Long live Generation C(ash)!