Someone mark it down on the calendar: Today, August 14, 2012, I found a pair of Christian Louboutin Daffodils that I like. I’m generally quite a Louboutin fan, but the appeal of the Daffodils has always eluded me. The enormous platform and spindly stiletto have always seemed so off-balance and graceless, not only in the design but also in the actual, functional utilization of the shoe. I’m always mildly shocked when I see someone walking in these shoes and she doesn’t snap an ankle right in front of me.

For once, the large, uninterrupted and unseamed platform serves a positive visual purpose – it provides a great big blank slate for the beautiful gradient python that makes this design work. It looks like a desert sunset, which is perhaps the cheesiest thing I’ve ever typed, but I mean it sincerely. The way that the dusty pink of the shoe’s body fades into beige, blue and green is a more subtle treatment than I’d expect a shoe like this to receive, and I totally dig it. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $1995.