I always feel like I should go on some kind of glitter diet in January: after all the sparkliness of the festive season, I really start to crave the simplest of styles, from clothes to shoes: in fact, I’m writing this wearing an old pair of ballet flats and some plain capri pants and I do not care. In fact, I’m rather enjoying it.
Still, I couldn’t let these shoes go unrecorded, glitter-diet or not. River Island have been bringing out quite a few designer-inspired pieces recently, and all of these shoes reminded me of Miu Miu’s most recent collection, with their curved or flared heels and their suede/glitter uppers.
I’ve found my tolerance of glitter shoes has been considerably higher following my Ted Baker Keanah2 purchase, and I actually quite like all of these. I’ve no idea how I’d actually wear all of them, of course, but hey, it could be an interesting challenge, don’t you think?
(And yes, I’d ever give the glitter ankle boots a go. Well, why not?)
I’m going to take a rough guess here that when you saw the words “Miu Miu” and “sequins” in the title of this post, these shoes probably weren’t what you were expecting.
Miu Miu is, indeed, known for sequins, but the brand generally tends to attach those sequins to shoes with a much higher heel. This time, however, they’ve gone for a low, block heel, which would generally be a huge turn-off to me – my rule of thumb for heel-height tends to be “go high, go flat, or go home” – but actually, I’ve been seeing a lot of little 60s-style shift dresses around lately, and I think this kind of height and look is perfect for wearing with that particular style.
Of course, the sequined uppers also help here: I don’t think anyone could accuse these shoes of being “frumpy”: not when you’d be looking down on this:
The biggest sticking point with these, then, would have to be the price: they’re $890, and you can click here to buy them from Net-a-Porter.
I’ve shown you Miu Miu’s curve heel shoes before, I know.
That isn’t going to stop me showing you them again, though, because even although I’m now pretty familiar with this silhouette, as soon as I saw these in bright red, on the Nordstrom website, my day got a little bit brighter. They look like toy shoes, somehow, but they’re still fabulous, and although I’ve expressed reservations in the past about heels which look like they’re about to collapse under the weight of their wearer, I know that if I were to find these on the sale rack, say, you’d have a really hard job prising them out of my hands.
What do you think? Worth spending £437 on? Click here if you answered “yes” to that…
I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon looking at the photos from Miu Miu’s resort 2012 collection, and wondering which of the sequin or glitter-covered lovelies I should show you today. Eventually I realised there was just no way I could only show you one pair: they’re all equally lovely in their own way, and if sparkly shoes are your particular kryptonite, then the gallery below may be dangerous viewing for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
All of the shoes pictured here are part of the Resort 2012 collection, and you can click here to buy them at Neiman Marcus. Which is your favourite?
Miu Miu have lots of variations on the toe-cap available this season – in fact, I showed you one of them last time I took you shoe shopping.
These t-bars are definitely one of my favourites, though: the tan and black colour mix is an absolute classic, and an easy route to sophisticated style. I’d love to wear these with a camel coat and black cropped trousers, but these colours won’t be hard to style, regardless of what you want to wear them with.
These are $595: click here to buy them at Miu Miu.
Diane is wearing the Crisscross Glitter Ankle boots, in black on silver. I was only able to find the reverse of that combination at Saks Fifth Avenue, but these are pre-order, so I’m sure the silver pair will be available soon.
For me, these fall very much into the category of Boots Pretending to Be Shoes, as the effect is of a silver (or black) sandal worn with black (or silver) hosiery. I think Diane Kruger is one of those women who can wear absolutely anything and still look fantastic in it, though, so I like them on her much more than I liked them in the product shots.
Miu Miu is a brand I’ve always associated with amazing, glitter-covered shoes, but these ones stand out even for them: in fact, the glitter almost pales into insignificance next to that curved heel!
There are a few different variations of this style available as part of the Fall 2011 collection, and for some reason, none of them look quite “real” to me: I think the combination of the heel shape and high vamp makes them look almost like sculptures or toys, and the shoe on the right of the image also reminds me very much of shoes from a couple of centuries ago, which I’ve occasionally seen on display in museums and suchlike. (Minus the glitter, obviously.)
Like the heel, but prefer an ankle boot? Don’t worry, Miu Miu can help you out with that, too:
So there’s a curve-heeled Miu Miu for every occasion, basically. Or for every occassion tha requires you to wear glitter on your feet, anyway.
What do you think of them, though?
All of these styles are available at Saks: click here to take a look.
We’ve looked very briefly at some of the flared-heel pumps Miu Miu has been creating this season, and I know the heel shape divided opinion a little, so I thought I’d take a closer look, starting off with these dark green peep toes, which are £393 at Saks.
Now, these shoes have a lot to recommend them to a certain Shoeperwoman. Well, they’re green, for starters. They’re suede. They’re peep toes. They have a 5″ heel and an almost 1″ platform, so they’re high, but shouldn’t feel quite as high as they really are. I also love the slightly chunky shape. This is something Miu Miu have been doing for a while now – in fact here’s a version of the shoe above, without the flared heel, which I tried on last month in San Francisco:
Aren’t they gorgeous? They were on sale. I can’t remember how much they were, now, but it was a price that seemed like a lot at the time, but like an absolute bargain as soon as I’d left San Francisco – and the shoes – far behind, and no longer had any hope at all of buying them. Another pair that got away. Don’t you just HATE it when that happens?
This is essentially the same shoe as the one shown above, but with a different heel. Most of the current collection, however, looks like this:
I actually really like the shape of the heel: it gives the shoe a more stylised look than would otherwise be the case, and it also has a vaguely 70s feel about it, which I’m quite liking at the moment. (Trust me, this surprises me just as much as anyone else – the 70s has never been my favourite decade as far as fashion goes.)
Here’s another version, this time with ankle strap and bow:
And while we’re on the subject of bows, which we almost always are on this site, this one deserves a closer look:
Sometimes I think that when it comes to shoes, the view from above is just as important as the view from the side. It’s the view you’re going to be looking at when you wear them, after all (assuming that you walk around looking at your feet, which isn’t something I particularly recommend in heels, but it can be hard to resist sometimes), and I think this little bow would provide a particularly nice view: while I’m not particularly sold on the grey colour, the flat bow is rather distinctive.
As much as I like all of these shoes, though, I must admit, I think I actually prefer the standard stiletto heel to the flared version: it seems more classic, somehow, and I’ve a feeling it won’t date quite as quickly.
What do you think? Which heel shape do you prefer – if either?
