River Island removable ankle straps
When I first stumbled upon these gold ankle straps, I was a little bit confused: in my mind, I couldn’t help but compare them (er, even although they look nothing like them) to the slim gold ankle chains people used to wear in the 80s, and which were always considered a little bit tacky. Once I’d had a chance to take a second look, though, I realised that’s a pretty unfair bias, and that this is actually a pretty cool idea – and no different, really, from the clip-on brooches and bows you can buy to change the look of your shoes on a budget.
The main difference with these, of course, is that they don’t actually attach to your shoes – you just buckle them around your ankles – which could possibly look a little odd to anyone looking at them closely. The idea, however, is similar, in that they’re designed to allow you to change the look of your shoes without having to actually buy new ones. They’ll work with any style of court shoe, and come in a selection of different colours, so you can mix and match as required. My favourites are the gold ones shown here, purely because I think they’ll work with the widest variety of uppers, but obviously it depends what you’re looking for, and whether you’re shopping with a particular pair of shoes in mind, or just buying them to allow yourself to experiment a bit.
So, what do you think? Good idea? Bad one? Will it catch on, do you reckon, and, most importantly, would you buy them? If the answer to that one is ‘yes’, these are £12 at River Island, and there are four different colours to choose from – so I guess you could technically buy all four, and still not spend as much as you would on a pair of new shoes!
Part of me wondered if these were actually a great idea but having looked on their website the examples they give do not look great, particularly the pink ones paired with sling backs! With the right shoe and outfit you might get away with it if you are going outfit a night out where people might not notice the ‘gap’ but otherwise just buy some shoes with ankle straps. They do have a bit of a fetishy element to them too, as they look a lot like cuffs. Not necessarily a bad thing if that’s what you’re going for, but probably not office appropriate! Overall it’s a no from me.