Chie Mihara shoes: Mary Janes, sandals and loafers
A Mary Jane is the shoe closed at the toe with a strap across the instep, and it is the model most present on this page. Alongside it sit sandals, open and held by bands or straps, and loafers, closed and with no fastening at all. They are three different ways of solving the same problem — keeping the shoe on the foot — and the difference is not aesthetic but one of hold: the more points of contact a shoe has, the less the foot works to stay inside it.
On a daytime shoe the height of the heel matters less than the surface it stands on. A six-centimetre block heel spreads the load over a wide base and stays wearable for hours; a four-centimetre stiletto concentrates the same weight onto a few square millimetres and makes itself felt after the first stretch of cobbles. The spool heel, narrower in the middle and flared where it lands, sits in between: it lifts without reducing the surface that touches the ground. It is the criterion worth reading on a product page, ahead of the centimetres stated.
The materials on this page run from smooth leather to suede, through animal prints and metallic finishes, and they behave differently over time. Smooth leather marks and burnishes, and creases over the instep are normal after a few weeks. Suede does not scuff but it absorbs, and it should be protected before the first outing. Metallic finishes cannot be revived with a pigmented cream, so they are cleaned dry only: a difference worth weighing when choosing, more than when caring for them.
On sizing the useful rule is simple: a shoe with no fastening should be taken snug, because there is no way to tighten it later; one with a strap can sit half a size looser, because the strap makes up the difference. Anyone with a narrow foot finds more hold in sandals with a band across the forefoot, or in models with a strap, than in a classic court shoe, where only the topline holds.
To see where this range sits against the rest of the women's catalogue you can compare the women's loafers and the women's sandals.
