Tuesday, July 31, 2012

How To Style: Smoking Slippers

Not just for Hugh Hefner anymore. Image source
Smoking slippers have popped up all over the place lately and with good reason; they're the newest, chicest thing to hit footwear since the red sole. We all have a million pairs of ballet slippers so I'm excited to try something new this fall.

I mentioned these leopard print slippers from Target last week and Lani at Mon Petit Chou Chou put together an impressive selection on her blog last Friday. I wandered into DSW last week just to kill some time (and to look at the sale shoes - got these for $17) and I was faced with a plethora of these guys.



One pair immediately stood out to me - the Tahari Clementine flat - A) because they're green; 2) because they're loud; and D) because of the AMAZING leaf print. My fashion radar has been pinging for anything with a leaf print since seeing this post on Elements of Style way back in March. So chic! So vintagey! So green! They will be mine.

With a print so bold these could indeed pose a styling conundrum. It would be easy to just default to pairing them with neutrals or just jeans and a t-shirt. That's fine, but I think you can do so much more with these! The key is to treat the colors as solids and ignore the print. Does that make sense? So instead of wearing leaf print flats you're wearing green flats with a little black in them.

Since these are borrowed from menswear, the first outfit I thought of was a clean pair of cropped skinny jeans with a classic collared shirt. These polka dots had me at hello. If J.Crew has anything to do with it (which, OBVIOUSLY they do), polka dots will be in for fall in a big way as a carryover from last fall. But polka dots with leaf print flats? Am I mad? No! Just look at the colors and worry about the print later. This works!

Some fun accessories (omg vintage owl necklace) and a colorful bag make that a perfect outfit. Change out the jeans for a pair of black or royal blue trousers and you've got a work outfit. 

I also want to be able to pair these with dresses and as the roulette wheel of options went around in my head it landed on chambray, as it so often does. Chambray is a light-weight denim-like fabric and it goes with virtually everything. When in doubt, go with chambray. I'll get this stitched on a pillow some day. This chambray shirt dress is so versatile - wear it by itself, with a striped sweater over it (as I've imagined here) or over leggings or skinny jeans as a tunic. I thought the leaf print scarf (told you I was obsessed) is a fun way to bring green into the look to further connect it to the shoes. All of the things on this board are interchangeable - the striped sweater can go with the jeans and the polka dot popover can easily go over the dress. Just make sure you belt it so you still have a shape with that little bit of extra bulk.


I can't wait to wear these outfits! The acquisition of the flats would, er, be helpful first and as soon my employer bestows the funding on me at it's regularly scheduled time (next week), they will become a member of my fleet of shoes.

I haven't decided whether or not I want to do style posts myself. I don't have a good camera and I'm not sure if my self esteem is prepared for the judgement that comes with doing something like that. But what good are my styling tips if I don't show you how I execute them myself? Someone twist my arm.

So how do you feel about smoking slippers? Is this a trend you can get behind?

Also, I'd much rather use Polyvore for styling sets, but not everything is available there. While I don't like the layout ShopStyle has, they have a lot more to choose from. So excuse the slightly wonky look that ShopStyle boards have.

1 comment:

  1. I am twisting your arm! I want to see this magic in action or else I won't believe those combinations work

    ReplyDelete