The Essentials of Life: Shoes, Chocolate and Macaroons

This weekend we went on a girls trip to Brighton to look at shoes.

Totally logical in my mind.

Actually, we had given Ellie a voucher for Irregular Choice shoes for her birthday last April, the idea being that we would get to Brighton over the summer to visit the Irregular Choice shop there and buy her wedding shoes.  Unfortunately, for various reasons the stars just didn't align before the big day so we postponed the trip and made it a winter getaway.

I've got a few posts lined up for the weekend's activities but I thought I would start with the sole (geddid?  sole? sole?!  I'll go and sit in the corner now) reason we jumped on a train at 10am on a Saturday morning (urgh) and made the 2 hour journey across the coast to the buzzing seaside town.

That reason would be this little shop buried in the North Lanes

A teal blue shop with the most fabulous and extravagant shoes for sale inside.  Shoes that we may or may not already have a few pairs of between the females of our little group.

We raced into the shop, ridiculously excited and immediately started cooing over the different designs.  We were led upstairs, dumped our coats and bags in a big pile and started working our way through the collection.  The poor girl who looked after us probably didn't realise what she had let herself in for! 

An hour and a half later (really) and I had worked my way through about 6 pairs I think, only to find that none of them fitted me as well as I would have liked them to.  I left empty handed (or should that be empty footed?).

The others stocked up though and we walked out of Irregular Choice laden with shoe boxes. 

Of course just because we had successfully purchased shoes didn't mean that we were ready to stop there.

We made sure we covered the other essentials before the night set in.  First stop - Choccywoccydoodah's.  You may have heard about this place or at least seen the television show.  Choccy's is famous for doing with chocolate what most other places struggle to do with cake.  It takes food sculpture to an entirely new level.  Just have a look.

Utterly breathtaking pieces of edible art in a window display that would give Wonka a run for his money.

Next door to Choccy's was Julien Plumart's, a 'Boutique Salon du The', i.e it does posh afternoon tea.  We were drawn to the windows by the towers of macaroons shimmering in the main window, all wrapped up in a big bow, beckoning us in further.

Inside are stacks of pastel coloured macaroons in 24 different flavours, just asking to be purchased.

There are also pastries and chocolate creations nestled next to tarts and creme's.  A true Parisian Patisserie located in the centre of a very English seaside town.

We tried.  We really did, but we just couldn't resit and bought a box of macaroons to share whilst getting ready for our night out at the Cabaret back in the hotel.  I had the mojito and the raspberry flavours.  Both were delectable.  If you go in, be strict with yourself or it will be all too easy to get carried away!

We lasted about an hour after we got into the hotel before we caved and dived into our little rainbow coloured box of goodies, served alongside champagne in plastic glasses as we couldn't find any actual glasses in our room.

I think that, all things considered, we demonstrated remarkable self-restraint.

Shoes of Prey

You know the feeling.  You have the perfect outfit and you need the perfect shoes to go with it.  You hit the highstreet, ready to see what goodies they have on offer.  6 hours later you are tired, grumpy, your feet hurt and you are still perfect shoe-less.

I don't think I will ever have that ordeal ever again.

I saw an advert on TV the other day promoting a website where you could design your own shoes.  As someone who loves her quirky and unusual shoes (Iron Fist and Irregular Choice are my two favourite brands) I thought that this would be right up my street.

I was wrong - this wouldn't just be up my street.  This was the kind of street I would quite happily build a home, get a cat, annoy the neighbours, attempt to make jam and kiss the kids goodbye as they left to go to school every day.

This was my dream home of the website world.

Founded by 3 friends in Sydney back in 2009 Shoes of Prey have been featured in Vogue and the hype seems totally justified to me.

I logged on, searched for the website, created a profile and got designing.

2 hours later I had 40 new shoe designs and one rather miffed husband who a) didn't have the computer and b) had a grand total of 0% of my attention.  Oops.

The only issue?  Around £100 a pair. Admittedly they do hand-make them to your exact design and to your shoe size (including one shoe bigger than the other if needed!) and deliver them 4-6 weeks later.  I wouldn't normally baulk at investing £100 in a decent pair of shoes.   My problem would be deciding which ones to invest in!

Anyone got a spare £4K lying around that they don't really need?  Wing it my way if so!

You get to select the type of shoe, heel shape, toe shape, heel height, straps, trimmings and details like bows or ruffles and then play with a selection of different colours and fabrics.

You can even select the sole and the lining!  The screen rotates your designs 360 degrees so you can check out your creation from every angle.

It is ridiculously easy to do and really rather moorish.  They don't just offer heels either, there are all sorts of design options for flats.

There are 'Inspiration' pages you can use if you are running low on ideas and the system saves every design you create.  

I could be lost for days here, just designing and tweaking and playing and then quietly grinding my teeth that I can't afford them all.

I was also really impressed by the fact they offer Vegan options for people who for whatever reason are not comfortable with animal skin

I think it was quite clear from my designs that there are certain styles and colour palettes that I am drawn towards!

These shoe boots were easily my favourite design and given the option would be the first ones I would order!

Oh and for you cynics out there, this is not a sponsored post but I sure as hell wouldn't mind it being one if Shoes of Prey want to comp me a pair! :)

I'm really intrigued as to what people think?  Is this something you would do?  What do you think of my designs and what would your dream shoe look like?