Rupert Sanderson black patent bow detail pumps, £545

I don’t know what it is about black shoes (and clothes, for that matter) lately. It’s not a colour I wear a lot of at any time, and I hardly ever want to wear black during the summer, when I’m much more into brighter, lighter shades, but this year I just can’t seem to get enough of it.

These patent pumps are by Rupert Sanderson, and, on paper, they sound more or less like every other formal court shoe out there : slim heel, patent upper, bow embellishment… we’ve seen it all a thousand times before, right? Well, we HAVE seen plenty of pairs of shoes like this before, it’s true (In fact, this is one of those increasingly-common instances in which I have to search my own website, just to make sure I haven’t written about these EXACT shoes before…), but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful – and these ARE beautiful, aren’t they? From the curved sides, to the pointed toe, and the bow which is just-enough-but-not-too-much, they’re that perfect halfway point between understated and stand-out, and if they were a little bit – OK, make that a BIG bit – cheaper, I’d be all over them. At £545, however, all I can do is dream about how I’d wear these, and on that subject, here’s what I’ve come up with:

♥  Warehouse skirt   ♥  Edith A. Miller top  ♥ Fabrizio Mancini belt ♥  Contessa sunglasses  ♥  Bobbi Brown lipstick

Red skirts are another thing I can’t get enough of, and this one from Warehouse is a case in point: I already own a couple of reasonably similar skirts, but as soon as I saw this one, I wanted it. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually buy it, but I’m now on the lookout for a less expensive version of that red stripe top, purely so I can try to recreate this look!