Clarks WTAF?

Hideous

You are really out of touch and this is what you need to be wearing. You may have personal preferences, but you should try and suppress these.

The shoes aren't the only thing that's 'distressed', I'm distressed just looking at them.

So interesting @CertainUncertain (and I very much enjoyed hearing about your much more glamorous life. I socialise in those areas too but my milieu is more openings = free wine ).

I tend to think of those low kitten heels or the cut-out-bits ones as flat-ish rather than properly heely and the same goes for heeled loafers (which I secretly like and had in the 90s in fact. I wore them with slim ankle skimmers and a Helmut Lang crombie...)

I haven't noticed anyone other than Shoreditch hen-night stumblers in proper heels for ages but I will keep my eyes peeled.

I hope it's a permanent change. I do get costume dressing - putting on an alter ego kind of thing - but women being pressurised to wear as a matter of course body-deforming footwear in which they can't run feels barbaric to me, and on an exact par with more obviously oppressive forms of mandated women's dress globally.

£250!!!!

Where does it say anything about them being ethically made, whatever that means? Certainly at the time I posted (more than a week ago!) there had been no discussion about how they were made.

Anyway it's not a question of being able to afford that much for shoes. I could if I placed that much value on shoes, which generally I don't. I can just about see me spending that much on a pair of hiking boots, but hard to imagine anything else being worth that much.

But fair point, if shoes are your thing and you get pleasure from collecting unusual ones then it may be worth it to you. I don't find them all that interesting and I must have conventional tastes as these shoes look ugly and badly made to my untutored eyes.

That's what ethically made shoes cost. Fine if you can't afford it, but don't glorify that.

I think they’re stunning. Sorry OP but YANBU - they’re still selling their more traditional shoes at the usual prices, you’re not being denied anything!

can I squeeze in too?

love

sorry mumsnet

They look like a Fashion Task from The Apprentice

It's hard to break it down, I think. I know what you mean about the commerce-adjacent, I see that type a lot when I'm in Mayfair or Chelsea, sometimes Marylebone. I was a a work event last week, a variety of ages, city-adjacent, and it was like a kitten heel showroom, python prints in excess (quite like some of them), plenty of block heeled mary janes (an abomination, imo), some heeled loafers (yuk) and a variety of point-toed flats.

I've also, over the past few weeks, been to dinner near Broadway Market twice and dinner in Clapton once, to an art opening at a friend's studio in Bethnal Green, a cocktail bar in Dalston and a gig in Hackney, so have seen a variety of footwear in the cooler haunts. Lots of trainers, but also lots of Chloe-type platforms (lots of them) and a big variety of heeled and wedged mules - particularly ones with the sides of the wedge sort of scooped out, like these

https://www.mytheresa.com/gb/en/women/dries-van-noten-snake-effect-leather-
mules-beige-p01014762?rrec=true

https://lemondeberyl.com/products/micro-wedge-mule-black-naplack-leather?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=0dea0b31e&pr_rec_pid=8199588053169&pr_ref_pid=8199587627185&pr_seq=uniform

And my sister and my DD, both of whom tend to be up on trends are wanting heeled thong sandals for summer - they look like torture devices to me🤗

@Blossomtoes Alas, I think the creatives and the achingly hip have been banished further afield to make way for the tourists, bankers and hen parties. I went through Shoreditch and Hoxton last night (in a taxi) and the streets were thronged with heels heels heels and inflatable penii.

Unfortunately selling two pairs of shoes per customer every 30 years doesn't keep a business going anymore. An explosion in the volume of accessible vendors (globalism/online shopping) means a smaller share of customers, so retailers have to stock low quality fast fashion to keep repeat custom up.

Depends where they hang out - Hoxton, Spitalfields, etc - achingly fashionable and barely a heel to be seen.

Yes, this is fair enough - I think the majority of UK heel wearers are definitely not haute fashion or haute bourgeoisie, but there is a level of luxe fashion which has never let heels go (and which to me feels more commerce/Kardashian adjacent than art form).

In London I primarily see wealthy heels on minimalist beige-and-butterscotch wide-trouser lunching types with excellent highlights, gentle tans and very understated work (still have laugh lines). Alternatively, on gallerinas (and their Zara wannabes) - these are more high-fashion, but it's a particular moneyed West London Euro look, rather than CSM students or the man-repelling fashionista subset?

I find all this coding so interesting. Your view might be different and I'm interested to hear it.

I live in London and I see them all the time. Maybe not point toe stilettos for the most part, although I've seen some lately, but block heels, platforms, I'm seeing loads. And have a look at mytheresa and net-a-porter, they're styling lots of outfits with heels again.

And you can argue that they're not the peak of street style, but I highly doubt the average mumsnetter announcing they're out is really out ahead of them on trends.

I agree it's become a bit of a ... class marker <runs>

Depends. Where I live it’s very rare to see anyone in heels and I never see anyone wearing them in London either.

I see this trotted out on mumsnet constantly and it's just... really not true.

Ah, now I get what you meant. No, I didn't see the other thread. This was an instance of entirely coincidental vocabulary overlap!

Agreed about the hobbling. And to add insult to injury, women have to pay to be hobbled, but that's another rant.

Fair enough, I used the expression 'class marker' yesterday on a thread and assumed I'd annoyed you.

And arf, no - even though I do like a bit of deconstruction, all heels make me think of little piggy trotters and/or how women are literally hobbled by the patriarchy 😁

I would argue that they are actually dangerous with the extra length of sole at the front (E.g. when ascending stairs) - based on my experience of one pair of extra-pointy cowboy boots and a nasty fall…

How have I quoted you from another thread? You posted on this one, three posts before my reply to you?

It's the shoes, isn't it? You've bought a pair, and the heels are so high that you're at too high an altitude to remember where you've posted. Does MN have a mountain smiley?

Some of us don’t want “normal stuff” - whatever that is.

Having said that, I have just put UPVC windows designed by people without eyes as my number one on the 'I would never buy a house with...' thread 😂

No that's precisely not what I'm talking about - as I said, 'don't like it, don't buy it.' It's the outrage that this shoe exists at all that I think is very parochial, as if the designer has personally insulted the poster.

There is room for edgy/high-fashion/conceptual and there is room for mainstream. To care enough to publicly mock or be outraged by either is odd.
My own style has historically tended towards the former (not now, cba); I find most middle-of-the-road fashion aesthetically and sometimes ideologically displeasing, and often wince internally. I wouldn't do so out loud because I know it would make me sound like a cunt without convincing anyone to care more about design principles.

Also, bit weird to quote me from another thread on an entirely different issue but ... flattered, I guess?