Cruel Shoes

I just happened to be in Neiman Marcus this weekend where they just happen to be having a big ol' sale, including some really wonderful shoes (I refrained, for the record). After carefully perusing the sale rack, I went for a little wander around the rest of the shoe department (a.k.a. Style Spy's Happy Place) and was stopped dead in my tracks by this very, very unexpected sight:

Good googly-moogly, what on earth was THAT doing there??? Smack in the middle of a bunch of Louboutins, there was the Alexander McQueen shoe that has been tormenting my soul for going on eight months. Now, I have never seen any Alexander McQueen not-nothin' in the Austin Neiman's. The Austin NM is wee. Don't get me wrong -- any Neiman Marcus is better than no Neiman Marcus at all, but the truth of the matter is that compared to the great big full-sized NMs in Dallas and other big cities, our is a little on the underwhelming side.

I picked up the shoe and noticed that it was suspiciously large for a floor model and when I turned it over -- eureka! 39.5!!! Which is frequently although not always my size in a heel. This orphan shoe was lounging about the place because, an SA informed me, a shopper had ordered it but had returned it. Why on earth, I queried, and not at all rhetorically, would anyone part with this work of art once they'd gotten their hot little hands on it? He shrugged.

So I slid that beauty on my foot and OMIGOD!!

(And not in the way that you're thinking.)

That shoe is shockingly beautiful and sexy. It is also shockingly uncomfortable. There's almost NO padding in the forefoot, and that is a high, high heel. And the engineering is... off. It's weird, it's hard to describe, it's like the shoe bends in the wrong place or something, and it also seemed very narrow in the ball of the foot. Granted, the shoe was, surprisingly, way too big for me, I stepped right out of it when I tried to walk over to look at it in the mirror; but usually the shoe being too large would make the discomfort somewhat less noticeable, not more, so I can only imagine that if this shoe has been the right length it would have been no less wrong.

This explains the return, perchance.

I don't have a lot of experience with McQueen's shoes. Like I said, it's not easy to find his clothes around here, but I did stumble across a pair of them at the Neiman's outlet here in Austin a while back. It was these:

only in a dusty rose color. Pretty marvelous. But also -- really, really uncomfortable. These were definitely too small for me, they were a size 8, as I recall, and I just chalked up the discomfort to that and the fact that the shoes turn up a little in the toe. But I do remember that there was also no padding in the forefoot of these as well.

This is very troubling. McQueen's shoes are often outlandishly gorgeous and I fully intend to own some at some point, so the idea that both of the two styles I've tried are chock-full o' owie is a disturbing one to me. It doesn't bode well, does it? I mean, imagine this scene: Style Spy drifts aimlessly through the shoe racks of the Neiman Marcus outlet (okay, I never drift aimlessly through shoes, I move with the swift, deadly silence of a highly trained elite forces commando -- no shoe is safe) when suddenly, the shoe in question, in the right size, leaps from its box into my hand. I slide my foot into it and sadly, the correct sizing does nothing to mitigate the poor engineering. I have a tough decision to make at this point, don't I?

Oh, who am I trying to kid? We all know full well how that one is going to go down...



Photos: Net-A-Porter.com, style.com