Foot fetish

While teaming up with famous fashion designers is standard practice for sportswear brands these days, Puma has pulled of a bit of a coup by getting Brit bad-boy designer Alexander McQueen to lend his name (and design flair) to a high-end line called, matter-of-factly, Puma McQueen.

Puma's manufacturing expertise has been brought to bear on some surprisingly complex designs. One model, called "My Left Foot Bound," has a vaguely skater-style look, with shoelaces woven lattice-like into a brown leather upper. But flip it over and a cast of the maverick designer's own foot -- the left one, of course -- is visible sealed in the translucent rubber sole. Equally unusual is NY Running Shoe-Laser, a model with a laser-cut leather lattice pattern stitched onto a white mesh upper and a funky protruding toe.