Put on fancy flats and you can dance the night away and into the new year | Mode

Qhe recent years have broken records by almost every metric, how about pandemics and wars and recessions and disastrous prime ministers. Not to mention the poor Queen and have you seen the price of the eggs?

But it’s almost champagne hour, and New Year’s Eve is the time to look for positives. So I urge you to thank, my friends, for the one thing that’s been true for the past five years, and that’s flat party shoes. We live in the golden age of luxury flats. As the golden era goes, it doesn’t compare to Renaissance Florence or the swinging 60s. But we are where we are.

New Year’s Eve is the perfect excuse to celebrate these shoes. You may not only dress up, but stay up past midnight. During the pandemic, I swore blindly perhaps in this column that I would never back down, but I enjoyed strolling through my now-vintage Manolo, Choos, and Louboutins.

Ha! We talked a lot of gibberish during lockdown. See also: takeaway coffee, which I believe I’ve sworn into forever. But my pain threshold is nowhere near the last decade. I leave the house with rights only when I’m sure I’ll be home kicking them from 11pm tonight.

And we are spoiled for choice. Our flats cup goes over like a champagne tower. The usual shoe rule is if it doesn’t have a heel, it doesn’t really have a vibe, but those days are long gone. Modern party flats started with Valentino Rockstud more than a decade ago. You may think you don’t know these shoes, but you did. Pointed toes, square jeweled edges and laces: a little bit elegant, a little bit punk. The Rockstud was the first It shoe to come in both a flat and a pointed heel, and it changed the game. Suddenly shoes don’t need high heels to be high status.

I plan to set aside how one of the reasons we wear high heels is to make our legs look longer, because it’s an under-the-radar type of fat phobia that doesn’t require oxygenation. So I’ll just say that if a party dress silhouette with flats feels off, try the spikiest flats you can dig into, because they make a real difference to how elegant you feel. Pointed toes for round ones are like freshly sharpened pencils for blunt ones: smoother, less casual.

The perfect luxury flat for tomorrow night, therefore, looks something like this. Pointed toe (or pointy with a square toe, if that’s more comfortable). Dark matt leather is the most practical; satin or silk are the least practical. I’ll point you in the middle, towards the metallic skin (Boden did an amazing silver one on a pearl studded strap for £77) or high-gloss patent in black or navy. Both are tough enough for the pavement but stylish enough for the dance floor.

Some kind of decoration on the toe may be necessary. It can be a buckle The gold-black mango pair looks pricier at 45.99 or a low-cut front that reveals what was known in the nineties as a toe cleavage. (The Vestiaire Collective is a great resource for this: quick searches pop up unworn Jimmy Choos pink flamingos for 100.) It gives them the Cinderella magic that shoes need for a night out.

Now you can put your best foot forward without getting on your toes. And you don’t have to leave the party before the clock strikes midnight.

Make-up and hair: Sophie Higginson uses Chanel Demander La Lune and Chanel Le Lift Pro. Model: Eliana at Body London. Dress: 160, samsoe.com. Shoes: 120, boden.co.uk