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Shoe Love

by Petria May

Shoes are a lot like cars. The moment you exit a shop in those leather lovelies, their value plummets faster than the wind can whisper, "Sucker!" And worse than cars, the better the brand, the more complete your loss. Still, we cannot stop buying shoes.

That is good news for shoe sellers (who are not unlike car salesmen). We pay too much; they continue raising the prices. Good deal. For them.

About four years ago, I saw beautiful boots from Belgian powerhouse Ann Demeulemeester. They cost about $500. A steep price, but virtually approachable. That is now a veritable bargain compared to the current $1000 price tag on similar boots. One too many zeros for my pocket.

Why the steep change upward? I have heard no one complaining that cows are becoming extinct. And if they were, I can only assume that leather coats, leather seats in cars, leather gloves and all of that other leather would be much pricier as well. Nope. It is all about the shoes.

Much like a man in search of his new best friend (a car), last summer, I was looking for the perfect pair of strappy, flat sandals. No easy feat, so to speak. Most of the sandals I liked cost around $400, including a delicious looking but scratchy feeling pair from Donna Karan. I settled on a pair from Jil Sander and I absolutely adore them. I do not, however, think the $200 price tag deserved the gleeful red ink used to define "Bargain!" Indeed, sandals require just a few wisps of leather. Compared to coats, boots also do not demand much leather. Clearly, something is amiss.

Smartly, shoe sellers will charge what the shoe market will bear. We little ladies invest in them madly. In fact, a mutual fund for "luxury" shoes (read "Made in Italy" or "Fabrique en France") would almost certainly yield higher dividends than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

So why are shoes, fashion's greatest folly among follies, immune to a rational price-to-value ratio? We WALK on them, after all, which inherently means that we DESTROY them with each step. The answer is simple: it is love. And love is so often completely and utterly irrational. Women often love shoes better than bank accounts, it seems. And prepare yourselves for another conundrum: the more we love a shoe, the more we annihilate it and the more likely we are to run hither and thither trying to find another shoe to bring forth that same emotional irrationality that is love.

I have experienced two great shoe loves, both times in Antwerp, Belgium, both designed by the house of Dries van Noten. One pair was flat, emerald green, and patent leather. They sparkled like jewels on my feet. Of course, the more I loved them, the more they disappeared.

The second pair of shoes was flat, black and strappy. They are without equal in terms of style. After a few visits to the cobbler and three short years, they too, succumbed. My feet will never be the same. If I spot those shoes ever again, you can be sure that I will breathlessly scoop them up. Price be damned.

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