Shop for Shoes the Fashion Girl Way

Words: Jabulile Dlamini-Qwesha | Photography: Teri Roberts | Styling: Jason Basson 

The oldest rookie error in the book is having the right look without the shoes; impactful style starts from the bottom up, that is a fact. Your wardrobe could be filled to capacity, with the most stylish threads, but you’ll never quite have anything to wear if you don’t have the right arsenal of shoes. It’s quite literally like having a weapon and no ammunition.

Inversely, making the right choices when buying shoes allows you to repeat outfits in a number of different ways, making you look like you have more than you actually have. Think of how obvious the switch up is when you wear an outfit with sneakers, versus wearing it with heels.

So, these are the points to consider before you make your next purchase…

Calculate...

Assess before you buy! A common mistake is buying things all willy-nilly, because you like them, without carefully considering how they will complement your lifestyle and everything else that you already have. Yes, abundance is great, but useful abundance is even better. How do you spend most of your time? What do you get up to on the weekends and in your downtime? Buying the cute heels you think you like when you’re mostly on your feet and are better off in flat slip-ons doesn’t make sense. That’s how you end up with clutter –however chic it may look. And while you’re on that: get really honest about what your body feels most comfortable in. Believe it or not, your weight, height and general disposition play a role in your levels of comfort.

The essentials are, indeed, essential... 

Cover the basics. No matter how outré your taste is, you’ll never not need the classics; they come in handy when you least expect them to. At times understated elegance is all the impact you might need to make, and in other instances, your look might be so extra that only a low-key silhouette like slingback low heels could hold it down. Shapes that are as unobtrusive as that usually work harder than Kris works to keep the Kardashian/ Jenner legacy alive. 

Trend carefully... 

The ‘f’ in fashion stands for the fun that comes with playing around with trends. Saying “I don’t wear trends” sounds really cute and edgy until you realise that by virtue of wearing clothing and shoes at all, you’re already buying into a past or present trend. You may as well keep it real, and then play a little. The trick with this is keeping your “trend”/ experimental budget manageable. Buying metallic boots or embellished neon heels at a cost that doesn’t put you under any strain, and then realising you’re not that into it three months later doesn’t suck as much as nearly starving to death while saving up and then changing your mind.

Keep your feet on the ground...

Scrap what you may have heard, statement flats are the lifesavers that come through for you like taxpayer’s money does for SAA. They are easy to overlook, because we sometimes conflate impact with elevation, and most people end up then going for heels, that’s when flats become that bare minimum flex that bails you out when you can only do the least.

Having walk-in quantities of all the styles you fancy is a common aspiration, but walking into a closet full of impractical pieces doesn't help either.