Emergency help required - I need to convince DD that loafers are cool!

[RitaCrudgington]

DD (12) needs new school shoes. WE are stuck in a style impasse. She insists that she will wear only paperthin ballerinas which will do her feet no good whatsoever, and go down very badly with the regulators of school uniform who disapprove of such things.

I claim that loafers/brogues and other "proper" shoes are totes cool and groovy and will in no way relegate her to fashion pariah status. FWIW as far as I know from seeing the other girls on the way to school, they are not actually all wearing ballerinas - they tend to wear real shoes.

Before we set off to the shops, could any of you fashion geniuses please provide pictures of genuinely cool young persons looking edgy and fabulous wearing real shoes with actual soles and some degree of arch support. Like Alexa Chung in her lovely penny loafers, but someone a bit less five years ago .

Specific shoes suggestions also gratefully recieved.

(and could anyone about to hand out sound parenting advice on the lines of "get a grip, who is the parent here FFS!" please bear in mind that this is S&B, and if I was in search of that sort of discussion I would have posted in a different section)

[Carpaccio]

How about looking on pinterest?

[RitaCrudgington]

I don't really understand Pinterest because I am so very old .

Do you go to it and then type in "young people looking cool in brogues" in a search box?

[HappyHippyChick]

Yes something like that. Just type brogues in the search box. Here is someone called Molly king (not sure who she is)

[HappyHippyChick]

Taylor swift wears brogues

[HappyHippyChick]

Taylor swift again

[HappyHippyChick]

Brogues from ASOS

[RitaCrudgington]

Oooh Taylor Swift! That rarest of beasts, a person of whom DD and I both approve wholeheatedly. Thanks HHC. Now all I need is a way to casually drop that picture into a conversation in the next 5 minutes......

[HappyHippyChick]

Emma Watson

[HappyHippyChick]

Good luck!

[Fierceflora]

Dd is 10 but very very cool and stylish, her last school shoes were loafers, her new ones are prob what are termed 'geek shoes'- t bar, patent, patterned holes at front. They sell them in topshop. Trendy ANd practical- win win!!

[Fierceflora]

Ps all the cool girls at the local all girls school wear them too btw

[balletgirlmum]

Dd (aged 13) wears very supportive Start rite Mary Janes. She aspires to a career in dance & musical theatre & has hyper flexible feet & high arches.

Ballerinas are banned at her school. None of the cool kids wear them. She would wear brogues by choice they were wide/deep enough.

Anyway here is a link to Zoella holding her shoes up

zoella-fashion.tumblr.com/page/2

[Hakluyt]

Clark's have fantastic brogues- my very cood dd and all her friends got their school shoes from school there.......adult prices, though, so be prepared!

[ThingummyJigg]

Top Shop sell loafers and brogues.

No idea if TS is cool. Or if you've already tried there. I'd have a google for the cool shops and look there - at least she can claw back some cred (as we used to say when I was a yoof, last century) but saying fgs they're from [coolshop] and looking pityingly at the poor kid who knows, like, nothing about fashion. Innit blud and all that sort of thing.

Of course you know she'll have secreted a pair of dainty little ballerinas in her bag to put on at school like I would have done, right?

[Fierceflora]

Like these

[Hakluyt]

specifically these

[ThingummyJigg]

Can you find someone you thoroughly disapprove of that dd loves, and a picture of them in sensible shoes?

Because contrary little sod that I was, that would have worked with me.

"You're not having brogues, Thingy, I've seen a picture of that "Boy" (she always said it like it was in speech marks) George in them. You'll get something else."

I'd have been handing over money in K Shoes before she got to the end of the word 'George.'

[RitaCrudgington]

Those Zoella supergeek shoes are the answer to every mother's prayer - the very quintessence of sensible school shoes for summer. Sadly DD disapproves of Zoella for mysterious preteen reasons so her stamp of approval cuts no ice.

[balletgirlmum]

Maybe because she lost a lot of fans due to her book having been ghostwritten!

Is she into any other you tubers? Tanya Burr? Sprinkle of glitter?

[RitaCrudgington]

Dan and Phil, and some chaps who write subversive songs about Disney Princesses and Five Nights at Freddie's (which she hasn't played - I'm not that much of a soft touch). None of these people are useful shoe role models.

[scarletforya]

But Loafers are not cool. They're deeply ugly. My mother made me wear them for school on the eighties and tried to convince me they were cool, but I knew they weren't. They were revolting and manly.

Can't you compromise and let her wear something nice but still better for her feet. It doesn't have to be loafers.

[RitaCrudgington]

Thanks all.

In the end she clarified that plain penny loafers with no tassels or fringe would be acceptable but we couldn't find anything fitting the bill, so she ended up with Clarks Bootleg brogues exactly like her previous pair, which will fall to bits like her previous pair but at least don't have soles made of a single piece of cardboard - they were also significantly cheaper than the adult version which she rejected on the grounds of comfort. How and when do you get your DC to wear shoes made of rigid leather rather than squidgier children's versions? Do you just leave it until vanity forces them into it? Should they actually be wearing softer shoes until they've definitively stopped growing?

(We also bought her wildly impractical blue suedette flatform sandals in the Debenhams sale for a tenner, because I'm a pushover and they did look really nice)

[balletgirlmum]

Dd is still only a size 2 so has no choice but to buy children's shoes.

[RitaCrudgington]

The advantage of DD's current age is that she can buy size 5 shoes from either child or adult sections for maximum choice, which is good - we can also wear each other's shoes at a pinch which is less good because I rather liked my rose gold ballet flats until DD wore the hell out of them.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Thank goodness brogues became the footwear of choice! My dd's current pair were bought at the start of yr 10 and should make it through GCSEs. Sixth form she'll be wearing docs so if they value their toes her classmates had better avoid flimsy footwear!