Last night I attended the opening of the first Steve Madden store in Cape Town which has found its home in Canal Walk.

You’ll find it upstairs, close to the food court.  I think there used to be a San Marina shoe store there before.  Anyhoo, Mr Madden is considered one of the most successful shoe designers in the US and has been designing shoes for the Steve Madden label for two decades already.  He gets his inspriation from street style he observes in places like NY and London and his target market is young fashion forward guys and girls who aren’t scared to show off a bit of flair.  I like the sound of that…

We were welcomed by seriously some of the best food & drinks I’ve had at a launch in quite some time.  The canapes were soooo yummy, especially these red wine super soft fillet steak sosaties… Mmmmmm.

Oh and then they had all kinds of candy everywhere!  Pyramids of everything your heart could possibly desire… Chocolate covered marshmallows, donuts with sprinkles, cake pops (that’s a lollipop with soft, fluffy cake inside!), heart shaped candy canes, you name it… they totally stuffed up my summer body plans… I guess that will start next week now:

Ooooh and then cocktail wise they had Turkish delight flavoured cosmopolitans!  Doesn’t that sound amazing???  That’s cause it was.  Even the men were braving to drink some pink drinks because it was just that good…

Now let’s get down to the business of the store and the main attraction, the shoes of course.  You’ll be happy to know that the shoes you’ll find very closely matches that of which you’ll see overseas right now, with the only difference really being the very seasonal stuff.  As the US is going into winter now, they’ll obviously have lots of boots to pick from, but for us summer sandals make more sense right now.  Also the store interior apparently matches their NY store as well.

Now I’m going to kick off with the mens shoes because I know I lose the boys once I start going on about heels, sexy sandals, oversized cluthes and stuff.   These are some of the cool mens shoes you’ll find:

Top left – two tone shoe R999; Top right – black snakeskin R999, Middle – boots (these were my favourites) R899; Bottom left – casual loafers R599; Bottom right – brown smart shoe R899

For the ladies: this season think bright neon sandals, sky high wedges and any kind of “bling” detail like studds, glitter, snakeskin, animal print, etc.

Main – studded heels R1499; Clockwise from top right – snakeskin R1199; glitter heels R799; Blue wedges R1199; diamante heels R1299; summer wedges R799 – I’ve just got to own that snakeskin pair!

Top left – sorry, didn’t get price on these, but loved them too much not to show them to you; Top right – boots R1799; Bottom – neon sandals R499

Of course what’s a good pair of heels without a fabulous bag, right? Don’t worry, Steve’s got you covered girls:

Top left – bright clutches R499; Top right – quilted black bag R999; Fringe bag – R699; Middle – animal print clutch R699; Bottom – neon bag R799

There’s quite a few things on my wish list already.  I’m just battling a head cold at the moment, so my brain wasn’t in shopping mode last night.  I think I’ll go back over the weekend and take my time to look through everything again.  I mean shoes are an investment purchase, you can’t just rush into it, especially when you’re not thinking straight.

xxx