Dune ‘Alvino’ gold pointed toe court shoes, £69

I’ve been on the lookout for a pair of plain, gold, pointed-toe pumps for a while now, so when I spotted these ‘Alvino’ pumps in Dune at the weekend, I had to have them.

A quick note on the price of these, before I go any further: they’re showing as £32 on the Dune website, but are out of stock there. I paid full-price for them in-store, and they’re full price everywhere else I’ve found them, so I’m not quite sure what’s going on there, but you might want to shop around a bit if you’re thinking of buying a pair.

Anyway, these are exactly what I was looking for: a simple shape, a low vamp, a high heel, and absolutely no fussy extras. They’re the kind of shoes I’ll wear to death, and as an added bonus, the quality of these is really nice, too: the uppers are a really soft, supple leather, which I think will make them comfortable to wear, and they’re really lightweight and pretty. Also: shiny. Ahem.

I went down one size in these, going for the UK size 3/EUR 36, which has been my usual size in Dune for over a year now. I find their shoes generally run a full size larger than most other retailers, and these a good fit: as with many pointed toe styles, they feel just a little bit snug to begin with, but as I said, the leather is so soft it molds nicely to the foot, and after walking around the house in them for a few minutes, they felt perfect.

How to save these shoes? 

My update to the Shoe Challenge rules this year means new shoes are exempt for the challenge, so I’m under no pressure to wear these by September 1st. Despite this, I’ve been doing my best to wear any new pairs I acquire anyway: one of the aims of the challenge is to help participants think more carefully about new shoe purchases, and make sure they’ll be able to actually wear them before spending money on them, so, in the spirit of the challenge, I thought I’d try styling these up as if I WAS attempting to “save” them in the challenge:

Shoes  and clutch: Dune | Skirt: eBay | top and belt: ancient, no idea

As I said above, I definitely wouldn’t have any trouble “saving” these if they were part of the Shoe Challenge. Gold goes with almost everything in my wardrobe, and I love using gold shoes to dress up casual outfits just as much I like wearing them with dressier pieces. As it’s December, however, I chose to style them here with a party-appropriate outfit; I’m not sure if I’ll get the chance to wear the outfit for real this party season, but I don’t think it’ll be too long before I’m wearing the shoes!