Irregular Choice Blushing Bird Flamingo Heels

It's time for another character heel release from Irregular Choice, the first (of many) this year. I had no inclination of what they were going to be, but IC picked one of my favourite things, flamingos. The graceful, pink birds were the heel of Roseus, a floral mesh ankle boot in black or cream, Flamenco a patterned mary-jane in black or gold and Blushing Bird a floral court with lace bow in orange, grey or turquoise. I bought the black Roseus and turquoise Blushing Bird, with the intention of returning the pair I liked least or that didn't fit. Tonight, I'm looking at the court shoe.
Actually when the email popped into my inbox last week, I fell for the grey pair (from the little I could see), but on the day, when I saw the pattern and colours in this one, I decided they were the pair for me. I haven't stopped looking at them since they arrived yesterday, they are just beautiful!  My setting for these shoes is a tropical, kitsch paradise. Bright clashing colours, leopard print, flowers, deer and hula girls. I hope you like it.
The shoes are a pale turquoise colour with floral pattern in blue, pink, green and brown. The pattern placement does vary between shoes and pairs (more on that later), but I got a really good set I thought, with the bold pink on the outer side of one shoe and blue on the other. They also have little satin roses sewn on sporadically (I've always had a soft spot for those). The shoe is trimmed with the most amazing 'oil spill' type metallic in aqua and also at the back of the heel. It's stunning in the light.
They have a rounded toe and large turquoise bow covered in white lace across the top. Inside is the new (SS16) green floral velvet with green trim (not quite as dreamy-soft as the purple last season because it's only underfoot) and the soles are minty green with large splodged spots in purple, very eye catching.
The only thing I began to worry about, was the heel being too low for me, as I'd heard so many people say it was much lower than other character heels. I'm happy to report it's 3 3/4" and doesn't feel overly low to me. For reference the lamb heel was only 3 1/4" and panda or bear 3 1/2", so it's in that region and certainly more manageable than the likes of the bunny or R2D2, for those that don't often wear heels. The flamingo faces straight out the back, unusually with only the body housed underneath the sole of the shoe. The head sticks out beyond the back of the heel and upwards slightly. I realise you probably know this, but I want to reiterate that you need to be careful with this design. Going upstairs is fine, but going down, the head and neck will hook on the previous step and possibly break, at the very least the paint will scuff. I'd suggest going down sideways, something I mostly do anyway as I find it easier to hold on with both hands on the banister (hey, once you've fallen downstairs from top to bottom once, you hold on as tightly as you can afterwards, trust me). Also sitting could be an issue depending on the chair. Something filled in, even train seats that you can't tuck your feet under could all scrape the little fellas, so be careful and again sideways is key. I would highly recommend for the sake of all your shoes that you break the habit of kicking one shoe off using the other foot. It's something I've never done, but I see it a lot and it creases and ruins the back of any shoe and you just couldn't do it with these without ruining the head and likely weakening it over time. If you have the boots you'll have to be mindful of lacing them up with your foot flat on the ground and not tilting back onto the heel.
The heel is so easy to walk in that I feel the need to remind myself of all those points above, because you are lulled into a false sense of security I suppose. There's some greenery behind the legs of the flamingo, so we aren't walking on a small tip, though it's nowhere near as big or chunky as the likes of the fawn or unicorn (think gnome) and is definitely a heel rather than wedge. I think the look of the flamingo is more realistic, like the pandas rather than the fun, childlike dinosaur or fawn. They have the trademark long, winding neck, beady eyes and hooked beak.  
Size wise, I bought my usual as I've found the recent character heels have been more generous than the originals that I almost always sized up in. At first I found these short in length, they pinched at my heel, but the second time I tried them on, they were already much comfier. It's mostly down to comfort levels, but I think in most cases you'll be fine with your usual size. Like I'd mentioned earlier, I like the placement of the pattern on my pair. I actually ended up buying the same pair again the next day from Schuh, as I had a discount code that needed using. So I thought you'd be interested to see comparison photos of the same sides of the different pairs as there's quite a difference. I've kept the tissue in the pair I don't want to keep and they are always on top in the photos. They do have a lovely pink side on the right shoe, which is really vivid, but the left shoe is a little bland. The inner sides don't really bother me as you don't see those, but it's a pity there's no blue flowers visible on that pair. Even the toes are slightly nicer on the other pair.
They look like display shoes, almost too beautiful to wear, but I really want to use them ( so long as I remember the heads).  I also got the boots, which I'm hopefully going to post tomorrow, then you can make up your mind of which style you prefer.  I've put photos up on my Facebook page of my background items, because I concentrate on the shoes in these posts and you kinda miss the good stuff in the background! What do you think of these kitsch cuties?

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