If the Shoe Fits (Buy it in Every Color)

Yesterday’s blog brought out memories of previous jobs when I found the half-slips stashed in the drawer. Slips I can’t recall wearing since I worked in an office and wore skirts and dresses, hose and high heels. I’m happy I don’t have to wear all of that “stuff” now. Now I wear jeans and tee-shirts and comfortable shoes. Birkenstock sandals and Merrill clogs, Nikes or Adidas running shoes, a well worn pair of Born work boots or my backward-tilting Earth shoes; all chosen for comfort, all going against Daughter #2’s mantra of “fashion over function.”

I used to put more stock in her mantra. As the collection of slips uncovered yesterday proved – I used to dress up. There was a time in the 80s when my legs hurt on weekends because I wasn’t wearing high heels. My legs weren’t used to the relaxed position. I remember vividly the beautiful, torturous footwear I used to subject my feet to. I had a collection of snakeskin stiletto heels, dyed colors only a snake on acid would appreciate: royal blue and black, lipstick red and black, and the sedate chocolate brown and beige. I loved those shoes and they loved me – they made my, then skinny, legs look great. I selected dresses to match my shoes, not the other way around.

I come from a long line of shoe loving women. My grandmother, my aunts and my mother each all but deformed their feet wearing pointed toed stiletto heels during the 1950s and 60s. Fortunately, my entrée into the world of high heels was in the 1970s. I remember strappy four-inch Famolares and wedge-heeled sandals we just referred to as “wedgies” (now that word means something else entirely). And boots. I recall walking across my college campus in brown leather boots with three or four-inch heels. The summer before my freshman year I sewed up a storm making skirts and vests copied from the coeds in Seventeen magazine to match my beautiful new boots purchased with money saved from my part-time job. Today I see girls on campus, my daughter included, wearing flip-flops. (We used to call them thongs, but that, too, has an entirely different meaning today.) Probably a much wiser footwear choice – at least they don’t run the risk of a broken ankle from falling off of their shoes.

My love of shoes hasn’t diminished, the aesthetics have just changed. Give me comfort over fashion any day, but if you can find that comfort packaged in a good looking shoe, I’ll take it. I’m still trying to make my, not so skinny anymore, legs look great. I come from a long line of well-shod, fashionistas; it’s in my blood.