'Shoes are the new bags'

As colours come and go in terms of fashion trends every season, women's accessories are not much different, according to reports.

Handbags are no longer the 'it' thing to have in your wardrobe as they are being overtaken by the phenomenon that is the shoe, the Telegraph reports.

A recent downturn in the sales of designer handbags has been attributed to a bag 'overload', or so Gaia Geddes, executive fashion and jewellery editor at Harper's Bazaar, has claimed.

"I think everybody has bag overload," she told the newspaper.

"I do not want to be on the tube and look around to see a WAG on the front of Hello! with my bag, as well as some trendy student sitting next to me with a fake version."

Ms Geddes went on to say that most top designers are branching out into shoes, from platforms, wedges and heel-less heels, which, according to the fashion specialist are 'rigeur' at the moment.

A change in popular fashion styles accompanied by extra tall models may be prompting the new interest in footwear, she added.

According to recent reports, women spend as much as £33,000 on shoes in a lifetime, with the average female splashing out on at least eight pairs a year.