FOOTWEAR Anything goes in hunt for the perfect boot

Usually one style is favored. This season, it's everything including white-hot stilettos.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SEATTLE -- Finding the perfect fall boot is hard enough as it is -- and it's already October, for goodness' sake -- but this season, it's especially tough because there's so much to choose from. White! Faux black! Pointy! Round-toe! Over-the-knee! Flat!
We're exhausted already. (And our feet hurt.)
But perk up, ladies, because it's fall, and shopping for boots is one of those seasonal back-to-school-type rituals.
"For fall, it's kind of all over the place," said Keith Wagner, Nordstrom's Northwest fashion manager. "In seasons past, it would be one kind of boot. This year, it's everything."
He's not kidding. Shoppers at the grand opening of Nordstrom's new Alderwood, Wash., store recently were greeted front-and-center by a display of neon synthetic leather boots -- in pink, orange and green -- with a white stiletto heel. (Pink ones were selling; green, not so much.)
Wearing white
And speaking of white heels, the fashion-forward can try this on for size: over-the-knee, white stilettos.
"White is the newest color for boots," Wagner said. "We haven't seen white boots for a while. A lot of people are going to be thinking, 'Gosh, white during the winter?'"
Think winter white -- all the better to go with the 1960s, black-and-white mod trend that was all over the runways during New York's fall fashion week. And if the over-the-knee boot feels a bit too Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" for your taste, then keep the color but lose the length -- boots come in all different lengths, from ankle to thigh.
"The super-edgy trend is the boots that go over the knee," said Tamara Donaghy, a Manhattan transplant and owner of the trendy Sway & amp; Cake boutique in downtown Seattle. "I think you have to be Gisele, you have to be really tall, to rock it."
Not a leggy supermodel type? You can still saunter down Pine Street feeling sassy in your new boots. And they don't have to be high-heeled to be high-fashion.
Donaghy -- who loves her pointy-toed Michael Kors stilettos -- just invested in a pair of flat rubber Pucci rain boots. (Burberry does a plaid rubber rain boot as well.)
"They're so Northwest-cool," Donaghy said. "I've seen a lot of kinda trendy girls wearing them with a cool cashmere sweater or rolled-up jeans. They're so cute."
Now that we've browsed over-the-knee stilettos and flat, rubber rain boots, let us turn to everything in between.
Classic and conservative
For the more conservative shopper -- who perhaps can't imagine white patent leather or psychedelic rubber in her closet -- we offer this alternative to the basic black knee-high boot: faux black.
"Instead of just the black boot, you'll see dark browns, red-cast browns and green-cast black," Wagner said. "It looks like black from a distance, but when you get up close, you'll see, 'Oh, it's really dark green.'"
This is not to say that the classic knee-high black boot is not, well, classic.
"A beautiful, 3-inch heel, pointed, black leather boot to the knee is phenomenal forever," Donaghy said, "and that's where I would invest my dollars. That's my idea of cool, classic style."
Toe the line
A tip on toes: Go pointy or round, but not square. Rounded toes -- on pumps as well as boots -- are making a comeback in fashion powerhouses like Gucci and Chanel and trickling down to the masses.
"I think the more rounded toes are looking fresh and new again," said Sarah Sclarandis, senior designer of women's footwear for Banana Republic. "Some people are madly in love with pointy toes and will always buy pointed shoes. ... I have a lot of pointy toes, and I have really started to look at the rounded toes and see that 'Hey, look, it's something different.'"
Which just goes to show, everything old is new again. Just ask Sherri Thompson, director of the Sea Gals, who came of age during the era of hot pants and white go-go boots.
"We wore (white boots) way back when I was on the squad, in the early '80s," said Thompson, a former Seattle Seahawks dancer. "More recently, we brought back the fitted, white, heeled boot. They're real showy, versus the black.
"I've always loved them. I would definitely wear them."