The Shoes I Hardly Wear and Would Still Buy Again

Before Covid, I wore stilettos all the time.

Not in the glamorous, occasionally-for-dinner sense. I mean I actually spent normal days running around in heels. Somewhere in the years since, that changed. Like a lot of wardrobes, mine became more comfortable. Flats appeared. Trainers became normal. The number of situations in which a very high patent-leather stiletto seems like the obvious footwear choice became surprisingly small.

I don't necessarily miss having sore feet.

But I do sometimes miss that version of getting dressed.

There is something a stiletto does that a perfectly lovely trainer simply doesn't. Your posture changes. The way you walk changes. The entire outfit suddenly knows what it is doing.

And these particular shoes take that feeling to an almost absurd level.

I put them on and feel incredibly sexy.

That is the entire magic trick.

Cost per wear is useful. I use the logic myself.

If you are deciding whether the expensive coat you will wear for six winters is a better purchase than the cheap one you will replace next year, it tells you something valuable.

But I don't think it can tell you everything.

If I divided the price of these shoes by the number of times they have actually left the house, I suspect the resulting figure would be horrifying.

On paper, they are probably one of the least defensible things I own.

Yet I wouldn't describe them as a bad purchase.

That matters, because there is a difference between something being impractical and something being a mistake.

I have bought expensive things I regret. A luxury label does not magically make a product right for me. If something doesn't work, I am quite happy to say so.

These work.

Just not very often.

My Santal Austral perfume earns its place by being used constantly. A Purol stick that costs only a few euros earns its place by surviving practically every beauty upgrade I have ever made.

The Louboutins earn theirs in another way.

They wait.

And then, occasionally, I open the box, put them on and think: oh. There she is.

Not because a pair of shoes turns me into somebody else. If anything, it does the opposite. They reconnect me with a version of myself that used to wear stilettos without considering it an event.

I like that she is still in there.

Apparently she just wears Miffy slippers considerably more often now.

I think this is an important part of talking about luxury honestly.

I would never tell somebody that a €1,200 pair of stilettos is a sensible purchase.

For plenty of people it would be an absurd way to spend money. For somebody else, the same amount might go towards a bicycle, a piece of furniture, a weekend away or straight into savings and give them far more pleasure.

Good.

The interesting question isn't whether an object is universally worth its price. Very few things are.

It is whether it is worth it to you.

And that answer is allowed to be emotional.

We are very comfortable justifying purchases when they are practical. A mattress supports your back. A good pan lasts for years. A coat keeps you warm.

A stiletto that makes you feel outrageously good for an evening is harder to put into a spreadsheet.

That doesn't make the feeling imaginary.

I have a running joke that when I am a millionaire, there are several more stilettos I would like to buy.

This is not currently a financial plan.

It is, however, a very good fantasy shopping list.

Because even though I wear heels far less often now, I still love the artistry of them. The ridiculousness. The silhouette. The fact that nobody has ever looked at a very high stiletto and thought, yes, clearly this was designed around maximum practicality.

They exist partly because beautiful things are allowed to be beautiful.

I like objects that know what they are.

These shoes certainly do.

When I started thinking about Tiny Luxuries, I thought one of its rules might be that expensive things should be used rather than saved.

I still believe that — mostly.

But these shoes have made me add an asterisk.

Because I don't think the goal is to force every beautiful possession into constant service just so we can prove we got our money's worth.

The goal is to actually enjoy the things we choose to let into our lives.

Sometimes enjoyment looks like emptying the perfume bottle.

Sometimes it looks like using the same €3 lip product for years.

And sometimes it looks like owning a pair of completely unreasonable shoes, wearing them rarely, and still smiling every time you open the box.

I can live with that kind of maths.

Especially in red soles.