Retail Love: TOMS Shoes

This post is a bit delayed, as I purchased my TOMS about 3 months ago. However, when I saw that they were coming out with a new design, I just had to post about them.

TOMS have always a lot going for them:
1) You get to feel good about yourself for buying them, because in doing so, you have donated a pair of shoes to children who don't have them, and this prevents diseases like Podoconiosis and allows them to attend school. Hard to argue with this.
2) SO COMFY. These are the best walking shoes I have ever owned. It kind of feels like you are wearing slippers, and yet you still have support. They are great.
3) Fun designs! They are always coming out with new styles and they name them after anthropologists and authors so you get to feel both benevolent and intellectual while you wear them. Also you feel a little pompous. Life's a trade-off.
4) TOMS also has this young founder of the company, named Blake which makes him seem extra young and hip, who appears on AT&T ads and such and is generally seen as an innovative entrepreneur of a company with a profitable business model and a selfless mission to help the less fortunate. It's all very now.

BUT. TOMS previously only came in one style. You know what they look like (see the picture of the adorable kid). They are slip-on shoes that look kind of like Keds or Vons or something. In just about every color, fabric, etc. imaginable, but all in the exact same shape. And I have heard complaints that this shape is unideal. I have to agree, because while my TOMS look excellent with one pair of jeans (the aforementioned Martin and Osa ones) they create a strange line with any jeans that flare enough to extend beyond the top of the shoe. It looks like just one line from jean to foot and its unflattering. (I'm sorry I lack the fashion vocab to make this make more sense, but trust me.) In fairness, they also have these wrap boot things. But they are weird-looking and seem impractical to me.

Anyway, now you have NO EXCUSE not to get some TOMS because a little email in my inbox told me they now have lace-up TOMS!!! Behold:
They have clearly recognized the need for additional styles, so I think we can expect even more variety in the future.

Now go buy some comfy shoes and spread some good will while you're at it.