If you’ve never been to a Miami, you should really try and go. It’s a place unlike any other in the US, and the fusion of Latin culture with Art Deco architecture and the colors of the Caribbean make the town a feast for the eyes and ears. The heat and the beach also bring out some wild outfits, and the colors and structure of the Christian Louboutin Meteorita Sandals would fit in perfectly in a South Beach nightclub.

A South Beach nightclub isn’t usually my scene, of course, but sometimes a particularly good piece of fashion has the ability to make you wish you were someone else, if only for a night. I’m guessing that these sandals are that kind of shoe for a lot of people – not something that would make any sense in their normal lives, but maybe once or twice, on vacation, they’d make all the sense in the world.

The quasi-pastel metallic finish of these shoes would fit in especially perfectly Miami, where pastels and glitz rule the fashion roost. I’m not quite sure what kind of ensemble you’d pair these shoes with (besides maybe white jeans and a caftan), but with shoes this attention-grabbing, I doubt it would really matter. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $1795.

We first saw the Christian Louboutin J-Lissimo Spiked Sandals back during London Fashion Week at the Mary Katrantzou show, and back then, it was one of those shoes that made me wonder whether or not it would ever see the light of day in a retail store. It looks as though it’s indeed been produced; Louboutin, after all, can more or less do whatever he wants and his pack of devoted fans will follow right along behind him. They’re a devoted group.

With the wacky design of this shoe, I thought it might be fun to play Fill in the Blank a day early. You know the drill: Complete the sentence in the title quote or buy through Net-a-Porter for $795.

For some reason, I have a complicated relationship with multicolored python. Some days, I want nothing but natural. Other days, the more colors, the better. Most days I fall somewhere in the middle and find myself craving single-color python accented by a bit of black, but I get bored with that sometimes too. Python! It’s serious business.

With all that in consideration, I think that the Christian Louboutin Lady Peep Painted Python Slingbacks are the best of all available worlds. The paint splotches blend in reasonably well with the natural grain of the python scales, but the colors pop just enough to let you know that there’s something special going on, even at a bit of a distance.

So many Louboutins have been completely over-the-top lately that I’m glad to see a design that takes the signature joie de vivre of the brand but turns down the volume a little bit. There’s still a big platform and a vertiginous stiletto heel, both of which will surely satisfy Louboutin purists and entice people who are looking to take their first step into slightly riskier waters. Considering the brand’s normal prices, these shoes don’t even seem all that steep for real python. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $1495.

I got into an interesting conversation with a group of female friends yesterday – are heels ever really, truly comfortable? For the overwhelming majority of women, I don’t think high heels ever are. Sure, most of us might be able to endure a couple of hours at a party, and a lot of us might assure our friends that our heels are great, but the women who actually feel that way are few and far between. I’ve only ever known one such woman in person; everyone else, after a few cocktails, is willing to admit that heels are actually totally heinous in a lot of ways. But they’re just so pretty!

Louboutins are often singled out in my group of fashion industry friends for being singularly uncomfortable, and Christian Louboutin himself has publicly admitted that he cares not about whether or not his customers’ feet hurt. Most of his customers don’t care either; for a lot of women, the pain is worth it in pursuit of the perfect shoe, at least for a special evening or occasional treat.

Still, though, I wish we could dispense with this bit of fashion mythology. Heels aren’t comfortable! We wear them anyway! It’s ok to admit it, ladies. You’re not any less of a trooper for saying it, and it doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that you haven’t irrevocably damaged the nerves in your feet or permanently shortened your calf muscles. On the other hand, if you’re one of those extremely rare women who think nothing of living your entire life in five inch heels, color me impressed. If nothing else, I’m in awe of the genetic jackpot that you hit in order to have feet and legs that will put up with those kinds of angles.

When you think about it, you touch things with your feet a lot during the day. A playful kick or footsie session under a table, using the toe of one shoe to scratch the back of your opposite leg, the various upholstered cars that you get into and out of on a daily basis. We all do that stuff without thought, all day long, and with few repercussions.

Louboutin lovers, be warned: If you plan to buy and wear the Christian Louboutin Asteroid Pumps, you’re going to have to start being very careful about all of those activities that women normall take for granted. I’d had to see you puncture a car seat – or worse, someone’s leg.

Not to mention all the ripped hosiery that a carelessly crossed leg might cause, both for you and anyone sitting adjacent to your foot. Most studs on shoes are relatively dull, but this one is so sharp and long that it could do some serious damage to all kinds of things. Although, if you were to suddenly find out that your boyfriend is cheating on you, this is the pair of shoes that you want on your feet when you kick him in the balls. Just don’t tell them I told you to do it, I don’t want to go to jail. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $1595.

I’ve always appreciated Christian Louboutin’s flair for the humorous. In the fashion world, so many designers and creative people are so self-serious that they take all of the fun out of what should be a joyful thing; after all, if we can’t enjoy ourselves while getting dressed, what hope do we have for the rest of the day?

That’s why I’ve always reserved a little place in my heart for the seasonal iterations of the Christian Trash Shoes. With nay-sayers calling his designs “hooker heels,” Louboutin did exactly the right think by embracing the silly and fundamentally sexy place that high heels have in all of our wardrobes.

This pair of Trash shoes is my favorite in a while because it doesn’t feature too much literal trash. Instead, the toe has little bits of balloons and streamers while the back and heel have a lovely print that’s reminiscent of mermaid scales or short feathers. Because this is a D’Orsay, those are the only two significant parts of the shoe, which tones down the literalness just enough to make the design super stylish as well as good, kitschy fun. Priced at $1395 via Neiman Marcus.

If you ever doubted the devotion of Christian Louboutin’s horde of fangirls, the success of his Daffodil platforms, at over six inches tall, should have been enough to erase that doubt. I’ve tried on a pair, and I genuinely don’t know how anyone does anything but stand perfectly still while wearing them. And yet, nearly every version of that shoe has sold out in short order; people can’t get enough of them.

With that in mind, it only makes sense that the line would expand to include other designs with the same perilously tall 2.4-inch platform. That’s where the Christian Louboutin Highness Pumps come in; is it just me, or does that peep toe look laughably small compared to the giant chunk of shoe below it?

My ankle is already sore today, and just looking at these shoes makes it feel worse. For a moment, I actually thought these shoes had a platform taller than the original Daffodils, which is probably a visual trick of the regular-sized peep toe; in reality, they’re the same. With a total height of over six inches and a beige patent color, I bet that these shoes look like you have legs for days. If you can stay upright for long enough that people will notice, anyway. Buy through Bergdorf Goodman for $1075.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that of all the shoes in all the land, Christian Louboutin’s are the most anticipated of any given season. The footwear master always has some kind of new trick up his sleeve, and even when you think that he must be utterly tapped out, after 20 years in the business and thousands of shoes, he comes through.

This sampling of shoes from Christian Louboutin Spring 2012 gives us an idea of what’s to come, and it seems as though Louboutin has gotten the message about the trendiness of non-platformed pumps. As a result, he’s offering more shoes of that structure than has become expected for the brand of the giant platforms, and the results are predictably excellent. The clear-panelled pumps in particular have piqued my interest; even though that type of plastic isn’t my favorite material, I bet they look great on the foot. Check out the rest of our preview after the jump.