Monday, April 14, 2014

Review: Ann Taylor Heels

The biggest downside to living in New York is receiving packages. I mean, I know some people live in these magical places that have doormen and elevators, but for the rest of us masses getting anything delivered via mail is a bit of a crapshoot. For one thing, I'm not entirely sure my delivery man even tries the door of my building. For another, you never get a "first delivery attempt" notice. They're all "final notices" that somehow imply it's your fault that they weren't able to delivery your package and, threaten you with the fact that if you don't immediately hike over to some random warehouse that you'll never see your precious order. 

To be honest, it's probably good for my wallet. Nothing is a bigger deterrent to ordering something on-line than the prospect of spending 45 minutes on the phone with customer service while literally chasing a delivery truck around the West Village. Obviously, it wasn't that big of a deterrent though, because the other day, these three beauties arrived on my doorstep (and by arrived on my doorstep, I mean I had to schlep over to the UPS warehouse and drag three different boxes home, but at least they arrived)
(1)
(2)
(3)












As you might have guessed, shoes are kind of my cryptonite. (It's not my fault, it runs in my family and, by all accounts, possibly my culture). That said, I was pretty firm in my resolve to only keep shoes that met the criteria of what I was looking for and were comfortable. Given my recent shoe-tastrophes, I would have been happy if even one pair had worked out. 

But, guys. They're all perfect . . . and, I mean perfect. They're exactly what I was looking for style-wise and soooooooo comfortable. First off, I was really impressed with the quality. The leather is really soft and pliable--as a proof of that, I get blisters even thinking about putting on shoes and I wore the last two pairs out on two different nights, for more than 3 hours, without any issues. The shoes have a leather sole, and there's a cute (almost tory-burchish) jewel on the bottom that's a fun detail. But, they don't deserve to be lumped together, so here is the breakdown:

1. Cate d'Orsay Leather Platform: Originally, I was going to order the "Perfect Pump," since I'd heard so much about it. But, at the end of the day, it didn't really excite me. I wanted something a little different and the Cate d'Orsay pump delivered. It just took one look at the snake-skin wrapped heel and I was in. The one thing I was a little concerned about was the height. I usually have a 3.5 inch limit on my heels and these are 4 inches. I've had pretty mixed luck in the past with platform pumps. If you're not familiar with platform pumps, the shoe has a hidden platform that gives you more support. So even though it makes you 4 inches taller, it really only feels like you're wearing a 3.5 inch heel.  Mind games, but when you're 5'2 and three-quarters of an inch, that feels like victory. The trick though, is that you're still putting a lot of pressure on the ball of your foot and a lot shoes skimp on any sort of padding. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ann Taylor shoes had a lot of cushioning . . . I don't think I'll be taking a wilderness hike in them anytime soon, but I could definitely wear them to an event or around school all day with very few problems. 

On another note, some people feel that a 4-inch heel is not appropriate for an office shoe. Personally, I think it depends on two things 1) the dress code in your office, and 2) the rest of your outfit. Pairing sky-high heels with a really tight, short skirt and a super revealing blouse might send the wrong message (again, depends a lot on your work environment). But, I don't see anything wrong with wearing high heels as long as you tone down the rest of your clothing. It's all about balance.

2. Arlene Shooties: I'd never heard the term "shootie" before and am still not sure what makes this a "shootie" versus an open-toed bootie or a sandal . . . but, regardless these shoes are fabulous. They have a lower heel (3 inches) and also have whatever magical padding Ann Taylor is putting in their shoes. The first time I wore them, I was on my feet for four hours and, aside from the fact that the toestrap started to pinch a bit at the end of the night, they were really comfortable.  The best thing about them though, is the versatility. I have a feeling, that of the three, these are going to end up getting the most wear. I wore them out one night with skinny black moto pants and have also paired them with a simple work/school dress and a pencil skirt. FYI . . . I'm a pretty true size 7 in most brands and these run slightly big when compared with the other two. My foot slips forward a bit, though it's not enough to warrant a smaller size. It doesn't bother me, but I may end up putting in an insert just to keep my foot in place. 

3. Juliette Ankle Strap Heels: My heart has been set on a pair of ankle strap heels for a long time. But, the ones I saw at Zara, tended to be really high (4 inches and up), and this wasn't a style that really lent itself to a platform. I was excited to see that these were only a 3 inch heel (which was well within my comfort range), though I was concerned I wouldn't get the same, elongating effect. I didn't need to be worried. They were just as perfect as the other two. As a heads up, if you have really wide feet or thicker ankles, you might have a little bit of trouble. The toe box is on the narrower side and the ankle strap isn't particularly long. (For reference, my ankles are 9 inches in circumference at the widest point and I had to go to the second hole. Given how short the strap is, if you had to use the third hole, you might not have enough room to buckle the shoes)

* * *

All in all, this was one of my most successful shoe shopping experiences (and I didn't even have to leave the comfort of my couch). It was fabulous to be able to cross off three of the shoes on my list in one single order! If you're looking for a great pair of heels, definitely give Ann Taylor a chance. (on the plus side, they're also almost always having a 40 percent off sale, which means they're basically free . . . or at least a really good deal). They're flats also look pretty cute . . . but I'm veering into dangerous waters.

Note: I know that everyone has different levels of pain tolerance when it comes to shoes, so my idea of perfectly comfortable may not be yours. Personally, I consider a shoe to be comfortable if I can wear it for at least 4 hours without developing blisters, the shoes don't inhibit my ability to walk or stand, and I don't feel like I'm ruining my feet. That said, if you aren't used to wearing heels all day or a 3 inch heel sounds high to you, you might want to steer away from the Cate d'Orsay pump or try something with more of a kitten heel, like this one)

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

A Shoe-tastrophe

A few weeks ago, I attended an annual fund-raising fashion show gala that my graduate program puts on. It was a really lovely event and gave me a much-needed excuse to dress up a little. All was great, until I got home and realized that my keys were not in my clutch, but were in my school bag, in my locker . . .  for some reason I couldn't find a cab or an Uber and ended up walking all the way to school and back. To add insult to injury, my go-to black heels which have been with me through every job, grad school, and recruiting event for the past three years . . . decided to pick that moment to give up on life. They'd been on their last leg (err, heel) for a while, but they just decided to stop staying on my feet. I had to do a sort of scoot/hobble/waddle all the way from the LES to NYU. Sadly, this was not my only recent shoe-tastrophe. A few months earlier, the heel broke on my favorite pair of party shoes mid-dance floor at a friend's wedding. (not that that stopped me when "Blurred Lines" came on) and the suede black booties that I love are starting to develop some serious bald spots (someone, please invent rogain for shoes!). 

I needed to invest in some new shoes ASAP and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted:



Oh, and all of the above had to be at least moderately comfortable. Easy peasy, right? 

Ha! Finding a shoe that's both comfortable and stylish is a bit like looking for the holy grail (minus a shirtless Indiana Jones). But, I had too many pairs of shoes that I didn't wear because they seemed to be designed by some sort of mediaeval torture expert (Note to my 20-year-old self: buying a pair of shoes knowing that you'd need to take tequila shots to numb the pain is never a good idea). 

* * *

Honestly, the reason I'd put off buying new shoes for so long (both those pairs of heels were more than 3 years old), was that I couldn't find shoes that satisfied both my fashion and functional needs. The pairs I found would be one or the other, but rarely both (and the ones that were both were a little out of my price range). I'd read about the Ann Taylor "Perfect Pump" on both Capital Hill Style and Extra Petite but had always disregarded it. Not to sound snobbish, but I don't always associate Ann Taylor with the highest quality and their styles can skew a little old-lady for me. The "perfect pump" seemed fine but nothing special. But, my latest shoe disaster had put me in a particularly vulnerable state and I decided I needed to swallow my pride and at least give Ann Taylor the courtesy of browsing their selection on-line (it was that or start showing up to events barefoot). And . . .  I was really, really surprised. I mean, not everything was amazing, but if this was what old-ladies were wearing on their feet than I was in. 

I was really only planning on buying on pair and trying it out . . . but somehow I ended up ordering three (just to try you know. I wasn't gong to keep all of them) that fit all of my criteria above. Check back tomorrow for my review! And, someone please call a shoe-therapist because I might have a problem. 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Blazers: Breaking It Down (Part II)

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(Check out Part I of my Blazer Posts here)


One of the luxuries of having really small data sets is that it makes it easy to play around with different ways of analyzing them. This was particularly true here, because it took me a while to figure out the best way to analyze my blazers. More than with some of my earlier analysis, I really wanted to know what I should look for in future blazer purchases vs. just what I should get rid of. First, I tried grouping them by color, which wasn't super informative. (hint: I own a lot of black) Then, I tried building a matrix looking at them by color and style, which was a little more helpful but still only gave me two dimensions to look at the problem.

In my data mining class, we've been talking about using classification trees in analyzing data. On a very basic level, classification trees help you "classify" different items based on their "features" or "attributes". Here, my items are my blazers and I picked three "attributes" that I could use to classify them: Color (Patterned or Solid), Style (Collar or Collarless), and Suit (Part of a Suit or Not)

This turned out to be surprisingly helpful and I ended up with a pretty picture. I knew that I had a lot of solid colors (even the patterned one kind of looks solid from a distance) and that a lot of my blazers seemed to pretty similar in style. But by constructing this tree, I was able to see which were the most important features for each blazer. For example, given how many solid blazers I have, it's more important to know my French Connection blazer is patterned than it is to know that it's got a collar or is part of a suit. Because it's different (and happens to be highly rated), it's both an item I should keep and might be an example of an area where I could add more items to my closet (patterned blazers galore!)

What does this actually mean for my shopping habits? Well, there are a couple of ways to interpret this data. Someone who had no experience with women's closets or any personal knowledge of me, might use the last branch of the tree to suggest that I go for a suit blazer but not buy the rest of the suit . . . or only shop for used suit blazers at thrift stores. That might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but it does show that you definitely need context when interpreting data!  In fact, those happen to be my oldest blazers, and at least two of them are on their last leg. More likely, one of two things are going on, either:

a) I've figured out what styles/colors works for me and I 
should just stick with them, buying more of the same

OR

b) My closet could use a little diversity 
(I'm leaning towards "b"). 

If I went with option "b", the features I have on my tree present different ways I could add a little more pizzazz to my wardrobe. I could choose to diversify based on cut. Or, if the suit style is really best for me, I could choose to add more patterned pieces. Or, I could be really wild and go for both. 

Zara Printed Kimono Blazer
Boom. Sold. (except that pattern gives me a headache)

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*Please note, that classification trees are normally built out using much more rigorous techniques. I used the idea more as inspiration rather than actually building a mathematical model. However, you could say, in theory, I used some sort of majority classifier approach. Another thing to know is that the patterned blazer is both part of suit, and a collared style. But because I started with color as the first branch of my tree and there was only one patterned blazer, color ended up being the most important attribute for this particular instance.