On June 15, 2019, Aubrey Plaza attended the 2019 MTV Movie TV Awards at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, wearing a black sequined Miu Miu mini dress with metallic silver crystal sandals from the same Italian label.
The outfit paired retro black-and-white detailing with heavily embellished footwear, making the shoes one of the look’s most distinctive elements. At around 5ft 4¾ (164.5 cm) with a reported US shoe size 8, Plaza frequently turns to heels that add height while keeping the footwear clearly visible beneath shorter hemlines.
Aubrey Plaza wears a black sequined Miu Miu mini dress with metallic silver crystal sandals at the 2019 MTV Movie TV Awards at the Barker Hangar on June 15, 2019, in Santa Monica, California
Aubrey Plaza Pairs a Sequined Miu Miu Mini With Crystal-Covered Silver Sandals
Plaza’s Miu Miu mini featured a contrasting white Peter Pan-style collar, white frilled cuffs, long sleeves, a rear keyhole detail, button fastening at the back, and a straight hem.
Rather than treating the shoes as a neutral finishing touch, the styling continued the reflective quality of the black sequins down to her feet. The metallic leather and oversized crystals caught the light against the otherwise monochrome outfit.
Plaza posed on the red carpet with Sarah Ramos, who appeared considerably taller in photos despite their reported heights being remarkably close. Plaza is believed to stand around 5ft 4¾ (164.5 cm), while Ramos is approximately 5ft 5 (165.1 cm) — a difference of just a quarter of an inch.
Aubrey Plaza and Sarah Ramos attend the 2019 MTV Movie TV Awards at the Barker Hangar on June 15, 2019, in Santa Monica, California
The visual gap is therefore more about styling and stance than actual height. Ramos’s long, column-like black dress creates an uninterrupted vertical line, while Plaza’s very short Miu Miu mini exposes more of her legs but visually divides her silhouette at the upper thigh. Their poses, positioning, and the photograph’s angle also affect the comparison, making Ramos look taller than the measurements suggest.
Plaza accessorized with Carbon Hyde earrings alongside jewelry by Stephen Webster and Eriness. Her metallic Miu Miu sandals added substantial height, while their oversized crystals and mirrored heels carried the sparkle of her sequined dress all the way to the floor.
Aubrey Plaza accessorizes her black sequined Miu Miu mini with Carbon Hyde earrings and jewelry by Stephen Webster and Eriness
A Closer Look at Aubrey Plaza’s $1,505 Miu Miu Crystal Sandals
Crafted in Italy from glossy metallic silver leather, Plaza’s Miu Miu sandals were anything but delicate. Wide straps were scattered with oversized clear crystals, with more stones sparkling across the toe and around the substantial mirrored block heel.
That chunky, reflective heel is what gave the sandals their character. Instead of the barely-there stiletto silhouette often seen on the red carpet, Miu Miu balanced the jewelry-like crystals with a weightier shape that looked especially striking beneath Plaza’s short sequined dress.
The combination of mirrored leather and crystal-covered heels was already part of Miu Miu’s footwear vocabulary. In 2014, Chloë Grace Moretz wore mirrored silver Miu Miu sandals with faceted Swarovski crystals covering their block heels, offering an earlier take on the same high-shine idea.
Plaza’s pair originally retailed for approximately $1,505 at Mytheresa. As a 2019 design, the sandals are now best viewed as an archival Miu Miu style rather than a current-season retail offering.
Miu Miu’s metallic silver leather sandals combine oversized crystal embellishments with substantial mirrored block heels
The crystal placement is particularly noticeable from the front. Rather than using a single jeweled buckle or narrow rhinestone strap, Miu Miu treated the stones as a major structural detail of the shoe.
That makes the sandals considerably more decorative than the minimalist ankle-strap styles Plaza has worn elsewhere on the red carpet.
A closer look at the oversized crystals, metallic leather straps, and mirrored block heels of Miu Miu’s embellished sandals
Plaza later returned to heavily embellished Miu Miu footwear at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. For a Megalopolis photocall, she wore crystal-covered white satin Miu Miu slingback pumps with sculptural martini heels, offering a later variation on the same combination of reflective stones and statement heel construction.
Before the MTV Awards: Aubrey Plaza Wears Brian Atwood Heels at WonderCon
A few months before the MTV Movie TV Awards, Plaza used another short-hemline-and-heels combination while promoting Legion.
On March 29, 2019, she attended the show’s WonderCon panel in Anaheim, California, wearing a long-sleeved Galvan mini dress with pointed Brian Atwood pumps.
The black-and-white color-blocked dress featured an asymmetric curved panel across the bodice and a small cutout near the neckline. In contrast with the crystal-heavy Miu Miu sandals she would wear in June, her dark pointed pumps kept the footwear simple and streamlined.
Aubrey Plaza pairs a black-and-white Galvan mini dress with pointed Brian Atwood heels for the Legion panel during WonderCon in Anaheim, California, on March 29, 2019 (Credit: Nicky Nelson / WENN / FayesVision / Dave Starbuck / Future Image)
The two 2019 appearances show different approaches to essentially the same leg-focused silhouette. At WonderCon, understated pointed pumps allowed the graphic Galvan dress to dominate. At the MTV Awards, the mirrored Miu Miu heels and oversized crystals made the footwear part of the main visual story.
More Aubrey Plaza Shoe Moments: Jimmy Choo, Stuart Weitzman and Sophia Webster
Plaza’s footwear archive extends well beyond Miu Miu, with pointed pumps, minimalist sandals, platforms, and crystal heels appearing repeatedly across premieres and awards-season events.
At the 2019 Parks and Recreation PaleyFest reunion, she wore black Jimmy Choo sandals with a Jonathan Simkhai mini dress, giving readers another example from the same year of how she styled a short hemline with much more restrained footwear.
Her footwear became more overtly coordinated at the Season 2 premiere of The White Lotus, where matching Stuart Weitzman stiletto sandals extended the red palette of her cutout Monot dress.
She has also experimented with crystal detailing in a very different shoe shape. At the Los Angeles premiere of Ingrid Goes West, Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen intentionally appeared in matching Marc Jacobs dresses and Sophia Webster “Coco Crystal” pumps with crystal-beaded stiletto heels.
Those appearances help place the 2019 Miu Miu sandals in context. Plaza does not rely on one consistent heel formula: she moves between minimal straps, sharp pointed toes, platforms, and highly embellished designs depending on how much visual weight the footwear needs to carry.
For the MTV Movie TV Awards, the oversized crystals and mirrored block heels were not simply accessories to the sequined mini. They gave the lower half of the outfit enough texture and shine to hold its own against one of Miu Miu’s most recognizable late-2010s party-dress formulas.