If the Shoe Fits a.k.a. Getting in Touch with My Feminine Side

One of my best girlfriends told me that she'd recently had the talk with her nine-year-old daughter. It began something like this:

"Okay honey, I'm going to tell you this once and only once, and then we will never speak of it again".

She went on to explain that it didn't matter how good your outfit was; so long as your shoes clashed, all that would be remembered by others was how awful your footwear was.

During the conversation, I found myself actually nodding my head vigorously in agreement. "She's just so wise. Truer words were never spoken", I thought to myself.

Within the last four years, I've become quite the shoe afficionado. My motto has become: You can never be too rich, too thin or possess enough shoes. My footwear collection has increased exponentially since turning thirty.

I come from a family that is super practical. Growing up, I never had more than one pair of shoes (unless you counted running shoes for gym class) because, as my parents used to point out, it just didn't make sense to spend the money unnecessarily since my feet were not fully grown. It made sense to me, even though it didn't help me when I was longing for something a little prettier than my serviceable pair of loafers.

As I got older, I always refrained from buying shoes. I'm not sure why. I think it was because I was always on a limited budget and could only afford either the clothing or the shoes, so I always opted for the clothing (you can buy way more clothes for the price tag of a single pair of good shoes). On those rare occasions when I did go shoe shopping, I'd buy a pair of classic basic black pumps -- versatile and matches everything, right? Hence, no need to have anything else. Those pumps became the grown-up version of my childhood loafers.

Truly though, I never really understood the impact that a good pair of shoes can have. You can wear the same little black dress every day of the week and somehow make everyone forget that they've seen it already, if you just vary the spectacular shoes accompanying the dress. Well, that and a few minor accessory changes like scarves and/or jewelery. This was a complete reversal to my other way of dressing/thinking, which was to vary the outfit every day but to keep the black pumps.

Now, I don't think that I'm really a very girly girl kind of chick in many respects. I abhor shopping (except for books), I'm not so into makeup and I like playing sports. I have a plethora of platonic male friends, way more than most of my other female friends have. I think the reason for this is that guys like me because I have a lot of male attitudes, and they can talk about things with me that they can't normally speak of with other women (comes from having an older brother, I think). I also can't stand the cattiness and evasiveness of some women. I'm pretty forthright, open and to the point and I despise playing games.

But on the shoe front, I am all female. I'm somewhat embarassed to admit this. Last year, when a good male friend of mine was bemoaning the vastness (or what he considered to be vast, poor innocent man) of his fiancee's shoe collection, I was notably silent. Of course, that would have been my cue to break down and confess that I actually owned way more shoes than his lady love. Instead, I chickened out and changed topics quickly, because the possibility that my revelation might precipitate the evaporation of a long-earned respect was just too frightening. But seriously, just how stupid and obtuse was the man? He would always pay me a compliment about how good I looked whenever we met -- how the hell did he think I accomplished that feat ... smoke and mirrors??!! Duh ...

The reason for this post? I just bought another pair of shoes today quite by chance (I had just bought my eldest son some much needed fallwear and was passing by). Hey, they were on sale (couldn't even get a t-shirt for as much as these cost) and they were absolutely hot. Did I need them? Of course I did, silly!

Recently, I had lunch with a good friend whom I don't see often enough. Her restaurant suggestion was located in this absolutely swanky mall. Not being acquainted with this mall in the least (I'd passed through it once about ten years ago to see a movie), my friend suggested that we walk around after our meal. At one point, we ended up in a shoe store. She is a self-professed lover of shoes, so we ambled through the store, picking up various slides, mules, pumps and boots, and kept up a running commentary. At one point, I asked my friend how many pairs of shoes she owned, to which she replied "forty". A woman next to us snorted and laughed and made some kind of comment like "Oh my God, I wish". My friend looked up and said "What? You think that's shocking?" to which the woman replied "No, I own a hundred pairs of shoes. And yet I'm in here still looking and buying. It's an illness, God help me, but I simply love shoes".

Okay, so I'm coming out of the closet now. The truth is that I absolutely adore shoes. I own a ton of them (although nowhere near one hundred). And I'm still always on the prowl. And it's not just for myself either; when my daughter was two months old, I was at a sample sale for a clothing line made in France. I came across these two pairs of girl's shoes that were totally stunning and completely unique, so of course, I just had to buy them. The fact that she wouldn't be able to wear them until she was about nine or ten was irrelevant. I finally had a daughter and I was going to make sure she damn well had fabulous footwear. (As it turns out, she is a true fashionista well beyond her years and her peers, and she is absolutely frothing at the mouth for the day that she can wear those shoes).

Recently, I took my step-daughter out shopping. She needed some new underthings before she left for university, and she asked if I'd take her. We ended up at the Bay where, for whatever reason, the shoe department is located right next to the lingerie section. So of course, after she'd made her choices, we had to walk past the shoes to get to the escalator. This was just too much for me. They were having a blow-out sale and we just had to stop and look. I ended up buying a pair of fabulous fuschia Pucci-esque slides for a mere $20. As we stood in line to pay, my step-daughter started in on her familiar rant about the injustices of life. More specifically, the fact that my feet were a full two sizes smaller than hers thereby making any expropriation of my phenomenal footwear impossible. I stopped right then and there, and gave her my friend's version of the talk, throughout which she nodded her head vigorously. I ended with the advice that she should emulate me and buy shoes when on sale. She countered this with the feeble argument that shoes only go on sale at the end of the season, and she would therefore have to wait through three seasons before being able to wear them. I told her that shoe shopping was like buying fine wine and that good shoes were well worth the wait if you were going to get them for three-quarters of the premium cost. She politely and reluctantly agreed with me, but I think she secretly thought I was cracked. Poor soul, she has so much to learn!