Mules are one of those shoe styles you don’t tend to see very often these days: perhaps because, as pretty as they can be, they’re not always the easiest shoes to wear. These ones really grabbed my attention when they appeared on Net-a-Porter yesterday morning, not just because of the oversized platform and exaggerated shape, but because the back view is even more dramatic than the view from the front:
Don’t you just love that sole? I’d probably want these for that reason alone, but the buttons on the heel also really appeal to me, partly because they remind me of my wedding dress, which had buttons on the back of the bodice. The overall look is somehow very decadent, and while I’d like these better with a smaller platform and more elegant shape, I think they’re pretty cute as they are, too.
One thing I don’t like? The $1,140 price tag. Click here if you want to buy them.
Although I love the look of mules, I don’t normally buy them, because they can be difficult shoes to wear. (I mean that literally, in the sense that it can be hard to actually keep them on your feet.) These ‘Elizabeth” shoes, however, are so stunning I couldn’t let them go unmentioned here, and I have a feeling that the deep vamp will make them a little easier to walk in than some of their counterparts.
The purple suede uppers, contrasted with the gold platform and heels, makes for a really eye-catching shoe, and the elegant silhouette is one that I just bet looks beautiful on.
Want to find out? Click here to buy them for $775.
At a time when the phrase “peep toe with bow” tends to mean almost exactly the same thing every time, I have to give River Island some credit for turning it into something different in this case.
They’ve achieved this, first of all by deciding to make the shoe a mule: a brave decision, since this style is one of the harder ones to wear, with nothing to hold the foot in place. Secondly, they’ve made it a rather unusually shaped mule, with that high, curved side. Finally, just to top it all off, they’ve made it available in two colourways, both of which are a little more interesting than standard black or gold.
What do you think of the results, though? I’m veering wildly between love and hate: which is it for you?
These shoes are almost identical in shape to a style River Island released last summer: presumably they were successful enough to make them want to re-visit the look this year, and I can see why – I have a bit of a soft spot for the wooden-soled mule, and was gutted last year when the nautically-themed version went on sale in every size but mine!
I’m not quite as taken with this buckle-fronted version, but navy shoes are my current weakness, and the shoes on the right would get a lot of use were they to magically find themselves inside the Shoeper Shoe Closet!
If you think you’d wear them too, they’re £39.99 at River Island.
When I read that Jeremy Scott’s latest collection was Flintstones-themed, and then looked at these shoes, I was confused. I mean, sophisticated, vintage-style, shape, some kind of cute embellishment on the front. There’s nothing prehistoric about these, is there?
Then I looked at the view from above:
Ah. Now I get it: it’s what Pebbles Flintstone wore when she grew up. I still can’t decide, though: are these pleasantly quirky, or are they just too cartoonish for words? Yaba-daba-DO, or yaba-daba-DON’T?
I think it’s time for an intervention where Gian Marco Lorenzi is concerned. I mean, just look at these rhinestone embellished mules: such show-stoppers! So much potential to be beautiful, glamorous evening shoes! And yet, every time I look at them, I think I’m starting to get a migraine, because that ridiculous, mirrored platform makes me feel like I have double vision. Is it just me?
Yet another shoe ruined by The Curse of the Enormous Platform. So sad. So very, very sad. Although, given that these cost £1,229, that sadness is purely academic for me, anyway, because it’s not like I could’ve bought them, no matter WHAT they’d looked like. If you can, though, and you want to know what it feels like to be considerably taller than you already are, these are available at Far Fetch.
Well, I think my internet connection is working again, but then, I thought that yesterday, too, only for it to drop out just as I was about to publish a post here. And then when I came back to that post today? The shoes I was going to show you were sold out. Gah. Blame Virgin Media, folks: I certainly am!
Anyway, rather than write lots and lots of words only to lose them again, I’m going to let you fill in the blanks yourself about these rope mules from River Island. You know the drill by now: “Blah, blah, nautical, blah blah, peep toe, blah blah, want them, etc.” All I’ll add to this is that although I know a lot of people find high heeled mules difficult to walk in, I personally really like them, and consider them to be a bit of a summer staple. If you do, too, these ones are £39.99 from River Island, and come in red and navy.
Don’t you just love that sole? I’d probably want these for that reason alone, but the buttons on the heel also really appeal to me, partly because they remind me of my wedding dress, which had buttons on the back of the bodice. The overall look is somehow very decadent, and while I’d like these better with a smaller platform and more elegant shape, I think they’re pretty cute as they are, too.
