When comfort wins

Today's outfit was a direct result of yesterdays outfit, in that the nude pumps from the thrift store (which i have discovered are actually from payless) were not as comfortable as I was hoping they might be. So this morning my feet demanded flat shoes and cozy socks, and I had to oblige with my converse sneakers. I was going to wear the velvet blazer, but then I ended up not liking how it looked and just grabbed my grey wrap before heading out the door.

I used to hold shoe comfort standards quite high. No one wanted to go shoe shopping with me, as I would scrutinize the shoes - walking around the store, keeping them on for at least 10 minutes before deciding that this one was just a tad to narrow or pinched one toe. Because of this I had very few shoes, and even fewer cute shoes.

Then I found these multi-fabric Steve Madden Vyceroy pumps. They weren't that comfortable. But I loved them. They weren't even that cheap -- $70!! Love can make you do crazy things.

This purchase caused me to have a shoe revelation: I decided I would be willing to suffer, just a bit, to wear the shoes I wanted.

So my closet soon began to fill with cute shoes (presently exceeding 50 pairs), and the number of shoes that were actually super comfortable began to plummet.

These are my top five most comfortable, cute shoes:

1. Flat Slouchy Suede Boots Mine were from Kohl's, but these look very similar. They are soft, they are flat; add a terry cloth insole or some cozy socks and I can go for miles.  These Zulu boots are $13 at Amazon (only tiny sizes though).
2. Naturalizer - Jangle Sandal Even though they aren't leather, they are quite comfortable. The foot bed is nice and padded and the straps don't dig in, $25 at Amazon.
3. MIA - Eclipse Flat As flats go, these are my favorite. The leather is soft and they have a decent amount of rubber on the sole, $17 - $43 at Amazon.
4. Converse Sneakers One of the few sneakers to ever grace the pages of Vogue, Converse sneakers are oddly fashionable. I love the array of colors and designs they come in, especially the design your own option! I really want to do that sometime. Typically they are $40, but I got both of my pairs at TJMaxx for $20. (The blue I've pictured are ones I designed, I actually own green and black.)
5. Onex - Puffy Sandal All of the sandals by Onex are amazingly comfortable. The price at Amazon is $74, but I have three pairs of Onex sandals and I got them all at an end of summer buy-one get-one sale. For the use I've gotten out of my gold ones, should I ever need to replace them, I would pay the $74.

I wanted to include a pump on this list, but the only pumps I can happily walk a mile in are my Kenneth Cole Reaction U Cube Pumps and they aren't in stock in black.

ps. Still three days to enter my giveaway!