The lovely Violet Le Beaux and Valerie of Dweam, have recently been writing a series of Sunday posts called Sneaker Sunday. The idea is that once a week we should give our feet the treat they so badly deserve and spend at least one of the seven days in sneakers. Given that we three are known for wearing elaborate and often sky high heels, this seems like a most sensible plan, however, unless I’m on a treadmill or climbing a mountain, I don’t wear sneakers. Generally I wear ballet flats for running around the house, but these don’t offer much in the way of support and often leave my legs aching worse than when I wear heels. I was determined to find a suitably SKM style solution, so I went on a quest.
A quick street snap of Violet Le Beaux and I on Sneaker Sunday heading out for clay pot lunch. Yum!
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Before I hit the shops wallet in hand, I decided I needed a plan of attack. I needed a rough idea of the sort of shoe that would work with my vintage-y outfits, the level of quality and support they would need to have, the sort of activities I wanted to do in them and just how much I was prepared to spend.
Firstly, what was I going to be doing in these shoes? Well I figured that I needed something I could walk in for hours on weekend shopping excursions, something I could dance in (I’m told that learning Swing Dancing in heels is not usually the thing and I’m a bit of a freak like that), and something that still looked good while doing all this. The trick about flat shoes and me is that while they may *feel* comfortable on, they also make me feel like I’m a three foot tall lump. So to pass the psych test, they would have to be pretty special.
I knew that looking in sports stores was out of the question so I decided to look somewhere totally unattainable first. My 1940’s Sear’s footwear catalogue! Yep, totally unachievable because they don’t even make them anymore. But, what this did do was give me a strong mental image of the sort of shoes I wanted, the silhouette, the colours, the support style. It also told me that in order to find anything remotely like this in stores I needed to resort to my previous summer sandal hunting technique and target stores that catered for a much older (read retirement home) market. Here’s where I went…
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I headed to the Kumfs store at Westfield Doncaster. Kumfs are a New Zealand brand known for their comfort shoes and quality construction. They are also known for not being particularly high trend but more classic, so perfect really.
And here are the those that have won the title of my “sneakers”. The “Bromley” from Kumfs.
These are without a doubt, the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned. They have amazing support and cushioning, good width, and a nice lower cut around the ankle which is more flattering on me. A few of you who saw the photo of Violet and I on the weekend asked for details on the soles and their suitability for dancing. For me these are perfect. They have no grip to speak of, but also aren’t as slippery as dancing on suede soles. It also means I don’t have to change shoes when I get to a dance as I do hate carrying shoes around. They didn’t come cheap and from memory were about $240 AUD, but I am told they are currently on sale in store so there may be bargains to be had. The thing that totally sold me on these though was that Kumfs has a 30 day,money back comfort guarantee! Who does that? Wear them for one month and if you don’t like them, they take them back and refund your money. The shoes also have a 12 month warranty, so spending good money on shoes I know I’ll wear for years to come seems like a very good investment to me.
While I was in store I was also on the hunt for another pair of shoes that could take the place of heels on days out where I have lots of walking to do, but still look good when I’m quite dressed up. And then I found them there too! I came across these faux skin, wedge heels that have a distinctly 1940’s ‘cockroach stomper’ feel about them. Once again these have a comfort factor of 100 and still look fantastic with my seamed stockings.
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Even though I have been wearing these with almost alarming regularity this last month, I don’t have a single outfit photo on file to show them to you in action! (Must remedy that this week) they are called “Krista” and were also found in store at Westfield Doncaster. Sadly, I haven’t found either of these models online to link you to, but it might be a case of calling your local store to see if they have them if you’re on the look out.
So there you go. Now each week I can participate in Sneaker Sunday, even if I don’t have a huge variety of ’sneakers’ to showcase. Check out Violet Le Beaux and Dweam’s blog for more on Sneaker Sunday.
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