Depending on how long you’ve been following our plucky little network of sites, you may or may not know the serious and unending love I have for Alexander McQueen, both the man and the brand. As we near the one-year anniversary of his tragic passing, I’ve been thinking more and more about the impact that McQueen has had on fashion at large and my own personal style in particular, as well as where the brand is headed under new creative director Sarah Burton. And then tonight I stumbled upon the fact that Neiman Marcus just added my favorite runway shoes of Spring 2011, the Alexander McQueen Floral Wedge T-Strap Sandals, to its website, and I think we’re all going to be okay after all.

Without a second thought, I had expected never to see these shoes grace a department store or a retail website. The tragedy of the runway, and of McQueen’s best pieces in particular, is that some of the most fantastical and exquisite garments are too fantastical and exquisite to be sold to the general public, and few people ever get a chance to own them. That I can click my mouse, fork over $3500 and have these shoes for my very own kind of blows my mind.

I don’t have an extra $3500 in my shoe budget, but someone out there does, and I hope that she’ll buy a pair of these fantastical, gravity-defying wedges and love them just as much as I would. Retailers need to be encouraged to and rewarded for taking risks like this one and offering the best of the design world for purchase, even if the pieces don’t stand to do a high sale volume and won’t appeal to shoppers who only occasionally dabble in luxury goods. Mostly, though, I’m just ecstatic to see these shoes come around again; I truly believed they were a one-time runway wonder. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $3495.

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