250 Shades of Happiness

>> I've emerged from a weekend of mind busting work of epic proportions which should hopefully yield results this week.  Apologies if posting has been erratic.  That's erratic by my weird standards by the by.  A sure fire way to remedy wee little tired eyes is to be faced with as many shades of colour as possible.  Repetto's L'Atelier service at Selfridges in London, a near replication of the same service they offer in their Rue de la Paix store in Paris,Nike Air Max 90 Mens, was the perfect opportunity for this rainbow confrontation.  A rainbow of 250 shades to be exact, available for you to choose the perfect combination for your Repetto ballet flats.   

You'd have to be extremely adverse to colour if you DON'T like the sight of things placed in rainbow order in manner of a box of colouring pencils or paint swatches.  Repetto's famous ballet flats are not the exception to this rule.  A circle of them with contrasting coloured grosgrain trims and lace ties  looks delicious enough... 

... but then you hit me with this.  The woodwork appreciator in me loves this whole 'L'Atelier' as a beautiful object in itself.  I was about to attack it Antiques Roadshow stylee and start testing hinges and lifting up panels to see whether it would indeed live up to its veneer.  In this instance though, what's in the box is far more important as it houses all 250 shades of lambskin leather swatches which gradiated from the palest of pastels to the deepest of dulls.  That's not 'dull' as in 'blah' by the way.  I found the dark navy, grey and deep tan just as alluring as the powder puff candy shades.  

I'm sure the Repetto staff at Selfridges have to tidy up this swatch house everyday because annoying people like myself feel compelled to go about pulling every swatch out jut to have a feel of it.  Even as I was standing there pulling out the shades, a gaggle of people surrounded the L'Atelier expecting the wooden box to do some sort of a magic trick or something...   

On the side were the selection of grosgrain ribbon that would be stitched onto the edge of the shoe... again more instant colour gratification.... 

The laces... 

I first tried on the base shoe just to check my size, something that is annoyingly not finite.  I'm anything from a 37 to a 40 but in Repetto land I'm the halfway house between that with an exact 38.5.  They can also take into any consideration that one foot might be bigger than the other.  Crystal from Repetto who was guiding me through the process asked me "How well do you know my feet?", a question that stumped me.  Now I feel somewhat deficient because I don't know my own feet very well at all.  Another thing to needlessly obsess over.  

The order is then sent to Repetto's workshop in Saint-Médard-d'Excideuil where the shoe is made up with the exacting techniques pioneered by Madame Repetto in the 50s - the 'stitch and return' technique where the stitching is done under the sole and then turned inside out so that the shoe is sturdy,cheap coach outlet, comfy and flexible.  Despite the lightness of a Repetto,coach purses outlet, I've always marvelled how 'weighty' they feel on the ground.  You don't feel like you're wearing a flimsy piece of cardboard that might break any minute.  I've been through one too many cheapie ballet flats (erm... 15?) to know.  

I was feeling decisive and didn't want to dither about so I picked out a trio of colours (you didn't think I'd do matchy matchy right?) which unfortunately don't photograph well here but it's a shade of blue called 'myosotis', after the Latin name for Forget Me Not, a bright neon pink and a turquoise blue that incidentally matched the nails of Crystal.

Three weeks from now and I'll have a pair of shoes that won't match anything I own.  Yay!     

L'Atelier Repetto service available at Selfrides in The Shoe Galleries until September 12th.  It may live on at the store elsewhere though beyond that... 

**EDIT** Forgot to add the small matter of pricing.  Yes, it's £345.  It is the upper crust of ballet flats.  I don't want to get haughty and breezily say "But you're paying for the creme de la creme...".  I don't know whether they are the 'best of the best'.  They are damn lush though and I suppose the level of customisation is a good chunk of where the money's gone...