Hello Kitty

After years in the fashion doldrums, the kitten heel is officially back. Kitten heels were seen all over the Autumn/Winter 2010 catwalks: at Stella McCartney, at Valentino and at Isabel Marant to name a few, and they were recently given a stylish seal of approval by Alexa Chung at Paris Fashion Week, which will undoubtedly launch thousands of copycats, or copy kittens if you will. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Yet despite all of this, kitten heels continue to divide opinion amongst women. Are they elegant, or are they a little bit twee? Are they dainty and demure, or are they sickly goody too shoes? There can be no doubt that kitten heels are the Audrey, not the Marilyn, of the footwear universe. I can certainly see their appeal from a practical point of view, in that you can be 'wearing heels' yet still run around the perilous cobbled streets of London in a degree of comfort, and they don't turn you into a towering giant, which is certainly an advantage for a girl who is taller than 5"10.

However, it is the very word 'practical' that trips me up and has prevented me so far from purchasing a pair. It reeks of that other word that just doesn't sit terribly comfortably within a stylish vocabulary: sensible. I am on the fence for now (or maybe until I turn into Carla Bruni and marry a French statesman). However if you do insist on wearing them, pair with rolled up slim fitting trousers and channel rockabilly-irony as seen at Isabel Marant (pictured).