Marc by Marc Jacobs Shoes

I was fine with the Isabel Marant Sneaker Wedges. They’re not something that I plan to wear, but the wedge was pretty low (and therefore less offensive when inserted into an athletic shoe), and I’ve seen them look fantastic on people in exactly the same casual French way that characterizes all of Marant’s best work. It’s a shoe interesting enough that I can see outside of my own personal style to understand why people like it.

The problem, though, is with the gaggle of impostors looking to benefit from the coattails of Marant’s creativity. Twitter was seemingly abuzz over the weekend with the news of the Marc by Marc Jacobs Kish Colorblock Wedge Sneaker‘s online debut, but for the life of me, I can’t see why anyone would be excited about these shoes. What they lack in Isabel Marant’s Parisian ease, they make up for by looking like the shoes of a slightly slutty circus clown.

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I think I can safely speak for most of us when I say that I absolutely wouldn’t question it if a couple dozen pairs of Lanvin shoes appeared in my closet tomorrow. I wouldn’t wonder where they came from, I wouldn’t ask my roommate if she had robbed Bergdorfs and decided to stash the loot in my room, I would just greedily accept my good fortune and go on my merry way, planning outfits for my new footwear.

Sadly, Lanvin shoes don’t fall from the sky (and if they did, watch out, lots of them are wedges), and you have to pay a huge premium for even one measly pair. Or you can just wait a season or two for things like the Marc by Marc Jacobs Chain-Embellished Suede Wedges to come out and get a similar look (and a solid shoe) for hundreds less.

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It’s not boot season yet, but boots cause such a conundrum for so many women every year that we might as well start discussing them now. Because they are dependent on several parts of the body all being within a certain size range (unlike regular shoes, which only need to fit your feet), finding a pair of perfect boots can be a task fraught with difficulty that’s not necessarily connoted by the phrase “shoe shopping.”

Fat calves? Skinny calves? Ankles that are skinny or fat, compared to your calves? High arches? Wide feet? Narrow feet? Short legs? Long legs? Sorry, you’re going to have a tough time. Can boots like the Marc by Marc Jacobs Over-The-Knee Engineer Boots be the answer to all your problems, or do these sorts of designs fail on an aesthetic level while succeeding on a functional one? So many questions. Literally. I can’t remember the last time I typed so many question marks.

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Marc by Marc Jacobs X-Band Wedge Sandals, $450 via Net-a-Porter

We don’t often mention Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes in this part, which is too bad. I often find MbMJ bags that I can’t wait to write about, but over the past few seasons, the brand’s footwear has left something to be desired. The brand has a quirky, young aesthetic that simply hasn’t come out in its shoes in a while.

The Marc by Marc Jacobs X-Band Wedge Sandals give me reason to hope. Jacobs’ entire Spring 2011 footwear collection is both fun and wearable, and the high-end detail work on this sandal befits a shoe far more expensive. And even with those details, the shoe remains highly wearable.

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