A couple of days ago, I put up a poll on my Facebook page asking what you’d like to see more of on the blog. By far the most popular option was “affordable shoes“, so today I’m on a fact-finding mission to discover what, exactly, that means to you. Of course, “affordable” will mean different things to different people, and what one person considers “cheap” another may find expensive, but in general, what would you consider to be a reasonable price for a shoe? Place your vote in the poll, and feel free to leave a comment too! (Note: I’ve put the prices in pounds, as we’re a UK site, but you can click here to convert them to your own currency.)
Last week, shoe website Sarenza contacted me to ask if I’d like to review a pair of their shoes, as part of their brand ambassador programme. Well, I thought about it for all of 0.58654 seconds before agreeing, but as soon as I started to browse the website, I realised I had a tough choice ahead of me, because they currently have over 9,800 pairs of women’s shoes on the site. Which is a LOT, even for me.
Luckily this is exactly the kind of challenge I love, but rather than make the decision myself, I’ve decided to place it in the hands of you, my readers and let you choose my shoes. I’ve selected four pairs from the Sarenza website which are within the budget and currently available in my size: you just have to tell me which pair you want me to review – simple, no?
I’ve put a poll at the end of the post, which I’ll check again at around this time tomorrow (I don’t want to leave it too long in case the shoes sell out in my size!): whichever pair has the most votes will be admitted into my Shoe Challenge, and I’ll style an outfit around them soon. Here are the contenders:
Some of you may remember me showing you these shoes earlier this year. I loved them then, and still love them now, but I must confess, I have absolutely no idea what I’d wear with them!
2. The Classic-With-a-Twist: STUDIO TMLS ’Louanne’
A simple shape and a bright pop of colour: perfect for Spring!
I think I’m alone amongst shoe lovers in that I’ve never really been a huge fan of Iron Fist. I do, however, rather like these shoes, which combine a neutral upper with sequined skulls.
Yes, I know: I already have these shoes in pink, but… I love them. And I don’t have them in THIS colour, which is why, left to my own devices, these are the ones I’d choose.
I’m NOT being left to my own devices, here, though: I’m placing the decision solely in your hands, so place your vote in the poll below (and feel free to drop me a comment explaining your choice, if you like) and whichever shoe has the most votes this time tomorrow will be the next pair of shoes to enter the Challenge, courtesy of my Fairy Shoemothers at Sarenza.
When I started my Shoe Challenge this year, and started collecting all of your shoe totals, I was reassured to find that my own shoe collection (currently sitting at 71 pairs) wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary: sure, there were a lot of people with fewer shoes than me, but there were also lots of you with many, many more pairs, so I figured that while my collection is just a little bit on the extravagant side, I wasn’t too unusual in my shoe-buying habits.
Apparently I was wrong about that, however, because according to the results of a poll released this week by ShopSmart, the “average” amount of shoes owned by women over the age of 18 is… 17 pairs. Now, while I haven’t bothered to actually work it out, I suspect the average for readers of this site is a little higher than that (When I was adding Shoe Challenge participants to the member’s list, I felt like the average number of shoes was probably somewhere in the mid-twenties), although that result is probably a little skewed, given that people who read this site are much more likely to have a higher than average interest in footwear, but the statistic that really interested me in this poll, is this one:
Of those 17 pairs of shoes, most of the women surveyed admitted to wearing ONLY THREE PAIRS on a regular basis.
And that right there is why I started my Shoe Challenge last year. I can well believe that most people out there are only getting regular use out of a small percentage of their shoe collections, so at least those of you taking part in this year’s challenge can take comfort in the fact that you hopefully won’t be one of those statistics. In the meantime, here are some more shoe-related stats for you, all from the same survey:
As you’d probably expect for someone who writes about shoes for a living, I get a lot of questions every day about shoe sizing: how well do they fit, how does this brand compare to that one, how comfortable are they, etc. I always really struggle to answer those questions, and a couple of days ago I got to thinking about why that is. Here’s my answer:
The numbers above each shoe represents the UK size. As you can see, I’m a UK size Who-Knows. I’ve always considered myself to be a size 4, but while the 4s are in the majority here (and the Louboutins in the middle of the bottom row should really count as a 4 here too, because although I bought them in a 5, that was purely because it was the only size left, and they’re too big: the size 4 would’ve been perfect…) there are also a good number of size 5s and a smattering of 3s in there too. The other shoe shelves tell a similar story.
What this photo also proves is that you can’t necessarily judge by brand either: there are several pairs of New Look shoes on those shelves, some of which are size 4 and some of which are size 5. There are two pairs of shoes from Matalan – one is a 4, one is a 5. And the most comfortable pair out of all of them? The size 3 Prada peep toes, which fit as if they were made for me, and are super-comfortable to walk in. Go figure.
What we can conclude from this, then, is that shoe sizing is completely and utterly random. Has it always been like this? I’m not sure. It seems to me that a few years ago I used to be able to walk into almost any shoe store (or order online), pick up a pair of size 4s and know that they’d fit me. These days I could walk away in anything from a size 3 to a size 5, and it’s almost impossible to guess what the lucky number will be this time. Now, it could just be that my feet have changed, of course, and that’s very possible – feet do change through time, so perhaps that’s what’s going on with me. Or maybe shoe sizing really is that unpredictable: who knows?
What I do know, however, is this: you need to try before you buy. No one else can tell you how well a shoe will fit, or how comfortable it will be to wear. The latter point is particularly important, because comfort is such a subjective thing, and what I find relatively comfortable may leave you in agony. It all comes down to what you’re used to, and what shape your feet are. All size 4s, for instance, are not created equal. Some of us have wide feet and some have narrow ones. Some of us have bunions, or narrow toes, or low or high arches. Some of us live in flats, and some will have to have our 5″ stilettos prised off our cold, dead feet. In other words, you may wear the same shoe size as the woman next to you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can wear the same shoes, because what she finds comfortable may make you want to cut your feet off to end the torture.
And what if you can’t try before you buy? Obviously if you’re shopping online, you’re not going to be able to try the shoes on before handing over your cash, so all you can do is be careful to check the retailer’s return policy to make sure you’ll be able to return the shoes if they don’t fit. I’ve never ordered from any store that didn’t allow you to do this, and the UK’s distance selling regulations also offer some protection when you’re ordering something on the Internet. My experience is that most stores make it very easy (and often free) to return something if it doesn’t fit and exchange it for another size: sure, it can be a bit of a pain to have to return something, but at least it makes it possible to try the shoes on at home and decide whether or not they’ll work for you.
What’s everyone else’s experience of shoe sizing? Are you the same size in every store, or do you, like me, have lots of different numbers on the soles of your shoes?
As this will be my last “proper” post before I head off for the holidays, I thought I’d try and track down a super-shoe: a shoe amongst shoes, the type of shoe that would make you all gasp in wonder and then fall to the floor in amazement at its beauty.
Sadly, that shoe just doesn’t exist, and if it did, you just know it would cost more than the national debt, don’t you? It’s just not possible to find one shoe to rule them all that every one of us will love unreservedly, so instead I’m going to let you do the choosing, and imagine you can ask Father Christmas for any shoe in the world this Christmas, money no object. Which pair would you choose?
To answer the question for myself, I’m going to be boring and go for Christian Louboutin’s Feticha pumps in red, simply because they’re the perfect red pump, and if I owned them I’d never have to buy another pair of red shoes ever again. (Yeah, sure…) But enough about me: what about you? What’s the number one shoe on your Christmas list?
So I’m going to let you guys decide: which shoes would you like to find under your tree?
What do you think of people wearing peeptoes with tights (in winter)?
This is a really good question, and it’s one I get asked fairly often (espeically at this time of year, when the weather is getting cooler, but the peep toes aren’t getting any less cute), so I thought it might be interesting to open it up to the floor, so to speak, and find out what everyone else’s take is on the growing trend for hosiery with open-toed shoes.
Now, it used to be the case that tights and open-toes were one of those big style “don’ts”. Interestingly, though, this hasn’t always been the case: I grew up with the idea that wearing any kind of hosiery with sandals or peep toes was a huge fashion faux-pas, for instance, but I often find that women who’re a generation or so older than me were taught the exact opposite: that bare legs are unladylike, and that, other than in the most causal of situations, you should always wear hose.
These days, of course, the tide seems to have turned yet again, and we’re starting to see more and more people pair peep toes, or other kinds of sandals, with tights and socks of all descriptions. The fashion world is in flux again, and it seems to me that while some people are happy to embrace the trend, others still have that instinctive, “But tights and sandals are just so wrong!” reaction that many of us grew up with.
So, who’s right? Well, no one is, really. This one depends totally on your own personal taste and comfort level, which means you should wear whatever you like (common decency permitting), regardless of the “rules” or what anyone else thinks. For myself, I’ve found my opinion on tights and peep toes changing over the years, and while I used to feel that ANY kind of hosiery with ANY kind of open shoe was just plain wrong I’ve actually come to really like the look of tights and peep toes, particularly when the tights are an interesting pattern or a contrasting colour. I think it’s a great way to make peep toes work in cooler weather, and I it’s a look that’s very fresh and modern, too.
This applies, however, only when the tights are opaque, and reasonably thick, and when the shoes are peep toes, not strappy sandals. I also think tights look better when worn with shoes which have a reasonably thick heel. What I don’t like, and probably never will like, is sheer tights – particularly flesh coloured ones – worn with sandals, but I know many people who disagree with me on that, so I will say again: it all comes down to personal taste.
(Oh, and to answer the “in winter” part of the question above, where I live, this is a look that would only really work in Autumn, or early Spring, for purely practical reasons. In winter the cold would probably be too much for a pair of tights to handle alone!)
What does everyone else think of this look? Yay or Nay to tights with peep toes?
Now, obviously it’ll depend very much on the vacation itself, where you’re going and how long you’re staying, but roughly how many pairs of shoes do you pack when you’re going away?
I’m in the process of packing for my upcoming trip, and me being me, I always want to take ALL of my shoes with me. And all of my dresses. And shorts. And… just everything. Nope, travelling light is not something that comes naturally to me, although over the last few years, luggage restrictions, plus the fact that I like to shop, and need to leave some room in my suitcase for the shoe-shaped souvenirs I will inevitably want to bring back with me, I’ve been trying to perfect the art of the capsule shoe wardrobe for trips such as this.
Tell me, then: what’s your magic number? Do you like to travel light, or do you adopt the boy scout’s motto: be prepared?
