Sunday, 28 October 2012

LADY@LXG: The Shoe That Fits (I Wish...)

I love you pretty shoe. You are so beautiful - yet when I wear you and walk ten steps, the excruciating pain you fill me with, leaves me with an uncontrollable urge to rip you off my feet and smash you against a wall.

I seem to have a love-hate relationship with shoes. Because I am a half-size and I have rather thin feet, I seem to have quite a problem finding shoes that fit, look amazing and are a dream to walk, stand and run in. So far, apart from my absolute favourite and rather battered pair of nude wedges from Banana Republic, I am at quite a loss.

Recently I was invited for a super posh launch. So I spent the afternoon dolling myself up, having my hair and nails done and donning a pair of beautifully crafted leather heels, which although only worn twice, have been stored for over a year (due to them not being too comfortable and only bearable for short spurts). Unfortunately, being in storage didn’t do my beautiful shoes any favours as they literally came apart when I reached the venue and I had to scuttle around Orchard Road looking for the perfect pair of wearable heels, which didn’t happen - so it was back home for me, all decked out in my finery with nowhere to go.

During the entire journey home, I fantasized about how I would smash my shoe with my trusty hammer. Unfortunately when I got back home, my dear man foiled my attempt at retribution by taking away the hammer and broken shoe and promising to have it seen-to by the cobbler. Bah! 

Several of my friends swear that Ferragamo shoes are a dream to wear and in desperation, I found myself at the said boutique. The staff were lovely and helpful but to be quite frank, they were not as comfortable as I had hoped (maybe its just me?) and I was not ready to fork out over $600 for a pair of shoes that would spend most of its life wrapped up in tissue paper and stored in my wardrobe. 
When I see girls prancing about Orchard in sky-high stilettos with all the dexterity and comfort of someone wearing flats, it gives me quite a case of shoe-envy. When I watch movies where the heroine runs and kicks zombie-ass while clad in a pair of vertiginous high heels, it makes me call up my mother and blame her faulty genetic material.
I give my cobbler so much business that the man knows me by my first name and actually asks after my many pairs of shoes. He has stretched, re-stretched and resoled so many of my shoes that he has formed quite a bond with them. 

Alas, I may have to accept the fact that for some reason (maybe its age catching up with me or just bad genes?) I am not as tolerant of the discomfort felt when wearing high heeled shoes as I did in my 20’s. Perhaps when we are in our teens and twenties, the nerve-endings in our feet are not yet fully developed or perhaps they are simply anesthetized with alcohol and a zest for life. Whatever the reason, now that I have hit my 30’s I find wearing high heels as comfortable as performing surgery on myself - sans the anesthetic.

LADY@LXG