What Would Coco Think?

These astonishingly ugly shoes by Chanel are so hideous they belong on the fat feet of Cinderella’s sisters. Particularly the clunky, clumsy hessian bag mules with the abomination of a cheap token flower nailed on the side. I’ll go one further and say these monstrosities belong on the hooves of Shrek’s troll wife. Or is that being unfair to Princess Fiona?

The other pair is almost as frightful. From the heel they are solid, staid cream Mary-Jane hybrids that unexpectedly finish in a delicate thong. Why, why? The balance is all wrong! When would you sport such odious footwear?

Clearly the original owner did not sport them anywhere, as they remain in pristine condition straight from the bandbox. She chose instead to donate them to a Salvos op shop – a charity thrift store – and just look at what they had the temerity to charge for them!

These astonishingly ugly shoes by Chanel are so hideous they belong on the fat feet of Cinderella’s sisters.

I take issue with the staff of charity stores who show zero discernment when pricing items. Cheap high street stores such as Zara are often racked with ‘designer’ items, while actual designer items are either priced ridiculously highly if they are well-known, or at a pittance if they are obscure (although I shouldn’t complain about the latter). The quality of the design and materials is often ill-considered.

I actually mentioned these shoes in the comment section of one of Salvos Stores’ Instagram images, and I was pleased that one of their marketing team contacted me about them within an hour. They clearly were not happy that these shoes had been priced so high and intended to send an area manager to the store in question – which is certainly maintaining good PR.

My sister Star spotted these shoes and sent the snaps to me last September. I did search online for them, wondering if the hideous mules were genuine, but it seems they were. Unfortunately I’ve lost the urls, but I recall one blogger reviewer who was scathing of them, anda second who fell in love with them and bought them, finding it difficult to choose between colours.

I must admit I am not a big fan of Lagerfeld’s Chanel, finding a lot of his output horribly frou-frou and twee (not, ahem, tweed). Considering her oft-quoted maxim of taking one thing off before she left the house, I often wonder what would Coco think of it?