Shoe Save 39 of 105 – The Shoeper Challenge

Peep Toe Shoes - Miss Von Teese - Black Patent Leather. Sale price $100.00. Sizes 38 & 39 only (Westfield Shoes Online)

A very nice lady sent me an email recently.

“I would like to give you $100 to buy shoes” she wrote.

Not surprisingly I was excited by this news and immediately told my friends and family.

“What’s the catch?” they asked.

The catch was that I had buy the shoes via Westfield Shoes Online and then write about the experience. How hard could that be I asked myself (and anyone else that was still listening)?

Online shoe shopping is much more pleasant than real life shoe shopping particularly when one has a Minx in one’s life. Real life shoe shops in shopping centres drive me completely bonkers. Our local Westfield has put dispensers full of sweeties near my favourite shoe stores. For a parent with two children under 10 this dooms any attempt at shopping to tantrum fuelled failure ab initio. The last time I bought shoes in an actual shoe store, therefore, was about 18 months ago. I now have a list of eBay saved shoe searches that takes me a couple of cups of tea to get through every morning. Occasionally, I will uncover something really quite special via eBay that warms my heart and brightens my shoe cupboard. My birthday Lorenzis fall into this category. I bought them for $99 from a shoe obsessed woman in Melbourne who had purchased them for the Melbourne Cup, realised that she couldn’t walk in them and then stuck them on eBay. As a result, I almost never buy shoes retail or brand new. The cost horrifies me and the real life retail environment makes me want to run and hide someplace dark and quiet and listen to theta wave music.

At home I have the advantage of a television, Harry Potter DVDs and healthy snacks to keep my weans amused while I window shop via the safety of my computer screen. These days I even have the use of a work laptop which allows me to shop from my bed, sometimes before I am even fully awake. So armed with $100 of credit and a computer, I took a deep breath and gave online retail shopping a shot.

The Westfield Online Shopping experience is reasonably straightforward but not especially useful for high heel fiends. You can browse through four footwear styles – boots, flats, heels and sports.

: Westfield Women’s Shoes Online

The choice of heels is then subdivided into Type, Price and Size. This is where I started to get frustrated – I like to be able to search by heel height – for example 3.5 to 4 inch heels, 4 to 5 inch heels and 5 inch plus heels – and by shoe style (platform, single sole etc). I also like to be able to find out easily whether the shoes that I am looking at are 100% leather quickly and easily. This is not possible on the Westfield site. Luckily since I knew what my price range was ($100) I set my search parameters to between $50 and $100. This search returned two pairs of leather shoes – a classic suede high heeled pump (in black and nude) and a pair of Siren Nelly black leather shoe boots.

Siren Nelly Black Shoe Boots

I asked the denizens of Twitter which shoes I should get. Nine out of ten people told me in no uncertain terms not to buy the peep toed boots. My good friend Professor Alison Young (of Images To Live By) counselled me quite strongly against them. “Peep toed boots look like a dog has chewed on them” she said.

My husband and fellow legal shoe obsessive Soshoemi were the only ones in favour of the peep toed boots. I bought them on their joint recommendation and a package arrived within two business days thereafter.

The Minx believes that all boxes and packages are gifts for her.

I did not have the heart to disappoint her.

Accordingly she was the first person to wear my new Siren shoe boots.

I couldn’t get them off her until she went to bed and even then I had to prise them off her wee feet.

My next problem was what to wear with the boots. The leather is very soft and the heel, though reasonably high, is quite comfy. Boots like this by their very nature have a tendency to cut you off at the the ankle though so I sought some professional advice before use. Enter Nikki Parkinson of Styling You.

“Wearing peep toe booties is a young look, therefore it’s all about the legs. I’d get the legs out if I were you” she counselled.

Here are the legs.

and the boots.

Siren Leather Stiletto Shoe Boots - via Westfield Online

Yes – I am wearing opaque tights which is a bit of a cheat but I wanted to make Nikki reasonably proud of me or at least ensure that I didn’t embarass her too much.

There is a fairly good sale on at Westfield Online at the moment – if I had my $100 to spend again I would consider some of these Peep Toe Shoes :