As you may know, I love Upper Street shoes. Their unique concept allows you to design your own pair of dream shoes – every girl’s fantasy, surely? Last year I got to design my own pair of heels – you can see my incredible pair here – which was great fun. The thing is, I have absolutely no issue finding nice heels (I’m addicted), but it’s finding cool flats I have more trouble with. See, as much as I love my collection of heels – and I do – I actually live in my flats, and my heels are more and more becoming pretty things to look at.

So when a little birdie told me Upper Street was working on expanding their design-your-own range to ballerina flats, I pretty much wet myself with excitement. I went to their office and designed my own from scratch. My brain went a little crazy, as there was just too much choice. Straps or no straps? Leather? Patent? Studs? Lining? Colours? I went for a slightly whacky design, because if you have the opportunity to design a pair of shoes yourself, you shouldn’t get a pair of plain shoes you can buy anywhere, right?

Today, they finally arrived. I’m pretty honoured as I’m one of the first to get their hands on the new Upper Street flats, and I can tell you they are, in one word, incredible. In the end, I went for leopard ponyskin, snakeskin back and front with studs. May sound horrendous, but the result is fantastic. (I’m a little smug, sorry) It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m the only person in the world who owns these shoes. Well, almost. As it turns out, without knowing, my shoe is pretty much exactly the same of Amanda’s from the Online Stylist. But that only confirms I made the right choice.

The ballet flats at Upper Street are available to design on the site right now. I’m going to spend the rest of the day designing some more on their Shoe Designer. You know… just looking. Ahem…


Some snaps of every shoe-a-holic’s wet dream: the Upper Street HQ