Pair #27- Doe, eyed.

Here little shoes. Heeerrrreee sweet little shoe-y shoes. Come out, please? Psssss. Look. I've got a little treat for you...see these nice feet? They aren't going to hurt you, I promise....

In every woman's closet, that is- any woman who has more then the basic six pairs of shoes (daily work shoes- whether they are loafers, pumps or sneakers- exercise shoes, rain boots, flip-flops, sandals and the one pair she wears to whatever fancy occasion arises)- there are shoes that fall by the wayside. It is inevitable, is it not? (As for the six-shoed woman, we can not imagine that many exist. If they do, they are irritatingly practical, and not for us anyway, are they?)

Sometimes we set forth with the clearest shoe objective in our heads. Today we will get a pair of black boots, of the sort we have been yearning for, sharp and equestrian, or a pair of Uggs, because our feet are tired of being jealous and cold, even though our minds are firmly set against the idea.

At other times, we are impulsive. We are in France or Montauk or Tulum, and there, it seems charming to buy those (absurdly) overpriced espadrilles that will fall apart at the sight of water. No matter- for a week they were perfect- the shoe version of a postcard, or a sunburn.

Generally, we fall someplace between the two. We are poking around on a bright Saturday, wherever we live, and we come across something interesting, or on sale, or both. Sometimes it is something we realize, upon seeing, that we desperately need. But often, it is a pair of shoes we not only don't need, but we will probably almost never wear. We never know it at the time- we rush home, happy with our purchase, only to realize a point in the near future that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in our clothes closet can be worn with such strange babies.

And then, after an initial period of trying them on with everything, we forget we bought them at all. Some of you will scoff, and say that you have returned yours, or sold them on Ebay, but I am sure, if you were to clean out your closet at this moment, there in the back, some place, would be a pair of shoes you never wear. I am particularly disgraceful in this regard, for I have many shoes I never wear.

May I present this particular example?

 

Aren't they charming, with their snub toes? And they have a small sweet heel, like the kind of YSL pump Catherine Deneuve wears in Belle De Jour. The tweed is nice- and totally in line with my personally rather preppy-edgy style. I like the brown suede trim at the edge, and the deer themselves are wacky in a fun, plastic way. I dislike the bow, but I haven't the heart or time to cut it off.

 And, they are a tad big. Worst of all, they are fakers. That's right! For the first hour, they are disarmingly comfortable. And then they begin to rub and scrap, and blisters erupt in the strangest of places. They also look strange with jeans, and none of my current crop of black dresses go with them.They are too twee for me, I think. So I have forgotten them. For four years, they have crouched and cowered in the back of my closet, gazing at me with plastic eyed reproach, and so about once a year, I take them out for a day, only to relegate them almost immediately back to the deepest, darkest recesses of the shoe rack.