Do you really need another pair of shoes?
29 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
No. But I want one. Actually I want several incredibly impractical pairs at this very second, and will be violently in love with several more unnecessary soles by the end of this week.
I don’t know where the affair started. Was it when Carrie Bradshaw pressed her nose to the glass and uttered ‘Hello Lover’, or was it even when Cinderella took her first steps towards love and freedom in magical glass slippers?
I suppose that Dorothy did need the ruby slippers to finally get back to Kansas, but to get her home did they have to be deep red and sparkling? It’s unsurprising that Cinders lost one of those glass spindly heels- one wrong step and enough blood would be spilt to feed Edward Cullen’s entire family. And Carrie Bradshaw, infamous style and sex guru is the first to admit her dizzying number of manolos is down to fetishism and not a frugal lifestyle.
Shoes have never been about necessity. In ancient Greece women could own as many as twenty pairs. They wanted a pair for every possible eventuality. And now in the age of mass production, airplanes and 70% off sales isn’t it only right that the number be increasing? If they need twenty pairs for their togas surely we need twenty times twenty in the twenty first century?
The torturously painful high heel which causes many to stumble or scoff is also by no means a new invention. In the 1500’s French women (ever the epitome of all that is chic and stylish) wore extravagant shoes with heels so high they were balancing purely on their tip toes. A little later the Italian fashionistas were teetering around Venice in stilt-like creations- a precursor to our modern day platforms! Except their creations were such an artistic extreme that servants were employed to assist the Italian elite to and from their gondolas.
We did not invent impractical footwear. I blame my predecessors for my craving for heels. And I thank them for appreciating how not everything must be merely useful. Occasionally it is acceptable for things to be purely decorative. They can be gloriously sexy rather than built merely for utility. Hence the emergence of the shoe fetish and what is known as retifism. Feet are not generally thought of as the most beautiful part of the female body, but in velvet court shoes suddenly all eyes are on them- even those of the male of the species. They are, after all, the only item of clothing it can be sexy to leave on…
However I have no problem in justifying my impractical footwear extravagances to the more judgemental faces exclaiming “you spend how much?” and most recently: “You bought another pair of boots?”.
Firstly my most obvious need for expensive stilettos derives from my vertically challenged state. Being barely 5’3” I require many high heels to diminish my disadvantage in society. How else will I reach the top shelves at Sainsburys?
Expensive shoes improve my posture, make the day look brighter and make me sexier. Even in a kitten heel you don’t walk but strut. You hold your head higher. Your smile is bigger. A beauty pick me up that does not involve plastic surgery cannot be bad. After all no one was or is as sexy as the late but fabulous Marilyn Monroe, who uttered these wise words: ‘I don’t know who invented the high heel, but all men owe him a lot’.
And finally come my more practical concerns. Of course I need a pair of shoes to go with every outfit. And, of course, it is far easier to buy new pretty platforms than to get my old faithful’s re-heeled. Much more fun too! Men of course can easily make do with merely a couple of pairs at any one time, but then apparently men’s footwear generally lasts longer than ours, and in fact stays in fashion for a longer time. Therefore women need to buy more shoes each year. In America studies have shown that on average men buys two pairs a year, whilst women splurge on five. If our U.S. counterparts can defend these numbers, then why can’t we?
But why are we so decadent where our footwear is concerned? The same girl who refuses to go into dress shops unless there is a rather attractive sale sign above the door will lay down a hundred pounds easily for some simple leather boots. Women who live in practical blue jeans and smart white shirts drool over patent platforms with velvet and lace embellishments.
Perhaps it is simply that it is our shoes that carry us through our every waking minute. To understand someone you must ‘walk a mile in their shoes’. So to be in another’s shoes is to become them, to take on their identity. The shoes we choose to walk in then describe us, and language would have it that they are more intimately connected with our personalities than we had thought.
Shoes are important to the modern woman, just as they were to the French bourgeoisie. They are often decadent and OTT, but beautiful and artistic too. We don’t often need shoes, but then we don’t need diamonds- and they are a girl’s best friend. I don’t need. I want. And I am not alone. I asked my friends if I am a footwear fanatic, and they smiled and responded:
‘Well if the shoe fits, wear it’.
