Carvela Boots, and How to Pick a Heel You'll Keep On

Carvela is one of the labels Kurt Geiger designs in-house, and it is where the group puts the heel. Embellishment, smart loafers, and a lot of boots, sitting a rung below the main Kurt Geiger line on price without dropping to high-street construction. The brand calls its comfort construction All Day Long, which is a bold name for anything with a stiletto attached, and it is the reason the label gets recommended by people who normally avoid a heel.

If you have landed here having typed the brand name, you are probably already past the question of whether you like them. So the useful thing to answer is which pair, and the answer is almost entirely about the heel.

The knee-high is the signature

This is where the range is deepest and where the brand is at its most recognisable: a sleek shaft, a clean toe, a heel with an actual shape to it rather than a block bolted on. Black leather dominates, with brown and patent running underneath it.

A knee-high with a heel is a different garment from a knee-high without one. It changes the line of your leg rather than just covering it, which is why it works with a mini and looks wrong with wide trousers.

Picking a heel you can stay in

Three things decide this and height is only one of them. A kitten heel under two inches is a walking heel, full stop. Between two and three, the shape starts mattering more than the number: a block or a cone spreads your weight where a stiletto concentrates it on a single point.

Above three inches, look for a platform at the front. Half an inch under the toe takes half an inch off the effective pitch of your foot, and pitch is what hurts by eleven o'clock, not height. A four-inch heel on a half-inch platform is a three-and-a-half-inch heel as far as your foot is concerned.

What to wear them with

A long-sleeve black mini is the least complicated answer and it has been for about a decade. It gives the boot the leg it needs and it does not compete for attention, which a printed dress will. If the boot is the interesting thing you are wearing, let it be the only interesting thing.

The same heel, other brands

A heeled knee-high boot is one of the most copied shapes on the high street, and the gap between the top and the bottom of the price range is enormous. Worth a look before you settle. The grid below is not brand-locked.

The grids on this page are live searches against what our retailers are holding, so what shows today will not all be there next month. Prices move too, in both directions.