Report by Julia Robson

Are flats the new heels? The message from the London catwalks is blurry, but the fashion rabble are voting with their feet. To quote Cheryl Cole… It’s 100 per cent YES!

Doc Martens, Converse baseball boots, plimsolls, brogues, loafers, workmans boots, flat (but not a pump), flatter (lace-up wedges are cool) and flattest (androgynous is best) are the footwear of choice. Handy for negotiating cobblestones at Somerset House, too. Perhaps this explains why the transition from heel to flat has gone smoother than expected. Well, almost.

“My patent River Island brogues hurt,” confessed Grazia’s Hattie Brett after the Kinder show, “I’ve got heels in my bag for later.” “Traitor!” said her colleague, Catherine Nieto, happy in her pink Converse.

“Thank God the brogue is back,” muses Erin O’Connor (well, she would wouldn’t she?). A glance around the BFC tent confirms flats are the future. Heel pioneer Nicholas Kirkwood includes them in his S/S 10 collection.

Meanwhile, Grazia’s Mel Rickey believes she has found the perfect compromise. “Doc Martens heels. The Holy Grail of footwear. These are the perfect in-between boot.”

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