You can wear anything as long as you put a nice pair of shoes with it.
Shoes. Let’s talk about them. I’m sure you’ve been through this just as much as we have — the sheer confidence from having pulled together an outfit that works, only to take a step back because you forgot to consider shoes, and the cycle of the confusion starts again. We’re back to square one. What should I wear?
Taylor Momsen once said, “You can wear anything as long as you put a nice pair of shoes with it.” Aye, that’s the theme — finding the nice pair of shoes to go with your outfit.
There are a few things to be considered to make a pair of shoes work. For now let’s work with three-season, occasion and colour.
SEASON
Once you consider the season in which you’re dressing, it’ll help narrow down your options and preserve your shoes' quality. Sandals, for example, are obviously not for the winter, the way white sneakers are not for the monsoon season. Right at the moment, you step out in them, you will be faced with splashes of mud and rain on your feet and shoes, which is not ideal. Rather, shoes with rubber molding are fit for the rains.
Boots and heels are versatile. Some several designs and constructions allow some boots to be worn even in the hot summers. Similarly, trainers can be worn in both summer and winter.
The season is important to keep in mind primarily for your comfort and convenience. And we know people like to say ‘no pain no gain’, but with shoes, let’s try to ‘gain no pain’.
OCCASION
Is it formal? Is it casual? Will I be sitting a lot or on my feet?
When considering the occasion for your outfit you will be tasked with finding the answer to a lot of questions — is it formal? Is it casual? Will I be sitting a lot or on my feet? And these are all good points to factor in to make your shoes fit not just the rest of your outfit but also your environment.
Let’s approach heels first — a year-round commodity. There are a good number of types of heels we can wear but not all on just any occasion — formality is an important factor. Here, let’s categorize shoes by their occasion and aesthetic. We’ll get straight to the point here:
- For formal occasions — pointed heels
2. Semi-formal occasions — rounded heels
3. Casual — strappy heels
Now that we’ve got the formality of heels covered, let’s look at other points. It’s easy to throw out comfort as a factor when settling on heels, but the dream is to have both the chic look and the comfort. This you can easily do by considering what kind of activities you will be doing beforehand. If you are going to be on your feet a lot, wear low heels. If you will be sitting a lot, go high.
When planning a casual look you have a lot of options. You can wear boots, sneakers, sandals, etc. The list goes on.
COLOUR
Pick a colour from your outfit and wear shoes in that colour.
The big trouble. Colour coordination. There is a very technical way in which you can colour match your outfits which will help you get some more, somewhat advanced ideas on how to colour match your outfits and shoes. But we will not be discussing that here.
For now, We’ll just introduce you to ‘colour pulling’. You’ve matched your shirt to your pants, your coat and all the other accessories. Now an easy way to match your shoes by colour is to pick a colour from your outfit and wear shoes in that colour.
SPECIMEN 1:
Here she has on the colours — black, blue and white. For the shoes, she has ‘pulled’ out the colour white.
This technique is especially helpful for patterned clothes.
SPECIMEN 2:
The outfit is coded in black and white. For shoes, the colour black.
SPECIMEN 3:
Notice the dark brown ‘pulled’ from her dress onto her shoes? Yup. Colour pulling.
We can also do the reverse. Pull a colour from your shoe onto your outfit.
And that’s it. We’ve covered the basics of picking the right shoes for your outfit.
There are a lot of shoe types that were left out here. And while we can go on and on about the fitting occasion to wear them, with the current prevailing vogue. the line between casual and formal clothes have been somewhat blurred. So a lot of your decisions will have to be left to your gut. But that is a great adventure in itself because there are so many styles to try and norms to challenge to exert your identity through fashion.
Let this article serve as the foundation to your learning, but not a strict rule. An endless span of experiments and discoveries await your personal fashion experience. As the saying goes — “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”. For that, We wish you good luck.
