She keeps her best shoes for days that stopped coming.
On the six tests the Christine had to pass before it earned a place in our shop, how it compares to the everyday pair you are actually wearing, and why it is $69.95 in our clearance.
The Christine in white, our bestseller.
Think back over last week. The Saturday market. A coffee that turned into a two-hour catch-up. The school run with the grandchildren. The walk back to the car with the shopping. Almost none of it was an occasion. Almost none of life ever is.
And yet by a certain age there are two pairs in most cupboards. There is the good pair, kept for best, worn perhaps four times a year, still in its box. And there is the everyday pair, the one you actually live in — comfortable, forgettable, chosen on the quiet understanding that nobody is looking.
Then the occasions get rarer and the everyday pair gets older, and one day a woman notices she has spent years dressing for an audience that stopped turning up, while every ordinary Tuesday went by in the shoes by the back door.
We are Matilda and Harper. We are sisters, and this has been a splinter in our side for as long as we can remember. The shoes we loved to look at never lasted past lunch. The shoes that lasted all day were never ones we loved to look at. Everyone told us that was simply the deal.
We never took the deal.
Wattle & Vale grew out of a place we kept going back to, among golden wattle trees. It felt warm, simple, and like a new beginning. We still look for that feeling in everything we choose.
Golden wattle in bloom.
The Christine is built on that refusal — that comfortable does not have to mean forgettable. Before it earned a place in our shop, there were six things we would not do without.
Six things the Christine had to get right.
1The insole is shaped, not just padded.
This is the first thing we check, because it is the first thing a cheap pair gets wrong.
Almost any shoe feels fine in the first ten minutes. Padding alone does that. What padding will not do is hold the shape of your foot through a morning, which is why the comfortable pair is so often the one you are quietly wanting off by two o'clock. The insole in the Christine is contoured rather than flat — cushioned, but shaped to support the foot, so the support is still there at the end of the day. The first step of the morning should feel like a small relief. So should the last one.
The white pair, with the contoured, cushioned insole.
"I wore them to the shops and then out for coffee, which is usually when I start thinking about changing my shoes. I liked the cushioning straight away, and I was still happy to keep them on when I got home."
2It goes on standing up, in one movement.
Some mornings you have about thirty seconds, and a chair is not part of the plan.
There are two ways a shoe asks for your time. There are laces and buckles, which ask for it at the door. And there is the loose slip-on that keeps its promise for a week and then starts leaving your heel behind halfway down the street, which asks for it all day. The Christine slips on in one move, and the elasticated entry holds the heel comfortably in place instead of letting it travel. No sitting down, no bending, no reaching back with a finger.
The red pair. Step in, and out the door.
"I wanted a pair I could slip on when I was heading out, without having to sit down and fiddle with straps. That is exactly what I like about these. I reach for them on the busy mornings."
3The sides are perforated, so it is still wearable in January.
Anyone who has lived through an Australian summer knows what a closed shoe feels like by three o'clock.
This is where most proper-looking shoes quietly fail here. They are built for a climate that is not ours, and so they are closed, and so from December they live under the bed while something open and shapeless does the work instead. The sides of the Christine are perforated — small openings worked into the upper that let air move around the foot. You keep a shoe that looks like a shoe, and your feet are not asking to be let out by the afternoon.
The blue pair, with the perforated sides.
"I normally leave closed shoes at home when the weather warms up, but I wore these on a sunny afternoon out. I liked the little perforations and was pleasantly surprised by how they felt."
4A sole that bends where your foot bends.
Station platforms. Shop floors. The walk back to the car with the shopping.
A stiff sole does not let the foot roll through a step, so the foot stops rolling and starts slapping, and by the second errand you can feel it further up. The sole on the Christine is flexible, so it bends where you do, and it is textured underneath for dependable grip on the surfaces you actually cross. The cork edge is the part we did not have to include and did. It is the detail that stops the shoe reading as medical from a metre away.
"The sole is one of the first things I noticed. It does not feel as stiff as some of my old slip-ons, and I really like the cork-look edge. I have worn them for my usual errands and enjoyed walking in them."
5Pretty enough that you want to be seen in them.
This is the test we would not bend on, and the one most comfort shoes never sit for.
A shoe built for comfort usually looks it, and a woman knows within a second which one she is being handed. That is the quiet insult of the whole category: she is offered relief on the condition that she stops being looked at. The Christine is finished instead of merely functional — perforated sides, a small tassel and a metallic heel tab — and it sits easily with tailored trousers, with jeans, with what you already own. Our customers tell us it looks better in person than in the photographs.
"I was not sure how they would look with my everyday trousers, but the little tassel makes such a difference. They look like shoes I actually want to wear out, not just something sensible for around the house."
The black pair, with the tassel and metallic heel tab.
6Five colours, nine sizes, and a way out if you are unsure.
Buying shoes online takes a little trust, so we made the risk ours.
We have never understood shops that stop at a size 9 and then wonder where everybody went. The Christine comes in red, green, black, blue and white, in AU 4 to 12, which is EU 35 to 43 — nine sizes, every one of them the same clearance price. If you have wider feet or fall between sizes, take the next size up. Delivery is free anywhere in Australia, and if they are not right you have thirty days to send them back for your money.
Red, green, black, blue and white.
"I hesitated because I am usually between sizes and do not love ordering shoes online. I checked the sizing information before I ordered. When they arrived, I tried them on with the trousers I wear most, which helped me decide."
Yes, we know how $69.95 sounds.
A shoe with this much thought in it, at this price. If that makes you wary, you are in good company. Several of our customers felt the same way before their pair arrived. They say it better than we can.
"At that price I was prepared for them to feel a bit flimsy. The first thing I did was look at the stitching and the tassels when I opened the box. They were much nicer in person than I had expected."
"I have bought plenty of comfortable-looking shoes over the years, and most end up at the back of the wardrobe. These are the ones I keep reaching for when I head out. That surprised me."
"I ordered them because the price was so good, but I did not expect to like the finish as much as I do. The little cut-outs and the heel detail look lovely together. For what I paid, I am pleased with the pair."
The Christine, next to what you have been buying
| Many comfort shoes | The Christine | |
|---|---|---|
| Look | Practical first, styled as an afterthought | Perforated sides, tassel and metallic heel tab |
| Getting in | Laces, straps or a struggle at the heel | Slip-on with an elasticated entry |
| Warm days | Closed and warm by afternoon | Perforated sides for airflow |
| Sole | Stiff, or slippery underfoot | Flexible, cork-edged, textured grip |
| If it is wrong | Read the fine print | 30-day money-back guarantee |
We will not ask you to give up looking good in order to feel good. That is the whole reason the Christine is in our shop.
Why we’re clearing the Christine now
Matilda and Harper.
When we started Wattle & Vale, we wanted women to have something lovely to put on even when there was nowhere special to go. But we know how life gets. There are groceries to buy, bills to pay, and always someone else who needs something first. A new pair of shoes for yourself is the easiest thing in the world to get around to another day.
That is why the Christine is going into our clearance. At $349.95 we know it was not a small purchase. At $69.95 it is $280 less — 80% off — and the same price in every colour and every size, because we are not going to charge a woman more for having a size 11 foot.
And we would rather see the Christine out in the sunshine, at the Saturday market or over coffee with an old friend, than sitting in a box waiting for the right day. Most days are ordinary days. We think those days deserve something lovely too.
- Contoured, cushioned insole
- Slip-on with an elasticated entry
- Perforated sides for airflow
- Flexible cork-edged sole with grip
- Five colours, AU 4 to 12
- Free shipping with Australia Post
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Buy 2 and get 15% extra off, buy 3 and get 20% extra off, buy 4 or more and get 25% extra off. Discounts are applied automatically at checkout.
We think often about the customers who opened the box half expecting to be disappointed. They were not asking for an occasion. They wanted one pair they could put on in the morning, forget about by evening, and still like the look of in a shop window on the way past.
What a woman is deciding, at this point, is usually not whether she likes them. She likes them. She is deciding whether an ordinary week is reason enough.
It is. Go and see if your size is still there.
Matilda & Harper
Wattle & Vale Melbourne
A personal letter from the founders of Wattle & Vale Melbourne. Customer reviews are quoted as written. Free Australia Post shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.