Oxfords, and flats in general, can be a lot of things. Functional, cute, versatile, comfortable – those are not only the words that I most often hear associate with shoes that add no height to their wearers, but they’re also the words that I regularly use myself when trying to explain why I like a particular pair. With the Nicholas Kirkwood Laser-Cut Oxfords, I’m motivated to use a different word – beautiful. I think that the design, along with the delicate mix of materials, has earned it.

For mosts brands, flats are an afterthought. The real design firepower goes into heels and boots, which are the things that attract the most attention from magazines and blogs and are fetishized the most by loyal customers. For an average designer, that means season after season of cursory collections of boring flats.

Nicholas Kirkwood is far from an average designer. The charcoal suede overlayed with laser-cut champagne silk is a treatment special enough for any pair of heels, but the fact that it’s done in a pair of menswear-inspired oxfords is truly special. It’s a masterful stroke to mix the fine and ornate with the mundane and functional. These shoes just shot to the top of my shopping list. Buy through Saks for $795.