Miu Miu’s new flared heel: what do you think of it?

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:

(Buy them)

Isn’t that purple suede amazing?

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:

(Buy them)

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?