James Strum
Why do women get all the cool shoes? Women get to choose from
pumps, stilettos, thigh highs, spike heels, open-toes, and that's
just the beginning. Men: oxfords, hiking boots, loafers. No wonder
so many men fetishize women's shoes rather than vice versa. Who
would want to lick a loafer?
You could say American men's staid shoe styles are born out of
this country's pent-up puritanical mores, but women have been
getting the swank shoes and the benefits that go with them for
much longer. Take the classic fairy tale "Cinderella." Everybody
looks down on her until she puts on some glass slippers, and then
she's suddenly royalty. Have you ever heard of some skid row loser
lacing up a couple of wingtips and being crowned king?
But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. None of these questions
would have plagued me before two months ago, when I realized how
woefully limited my own shoe selection was: a pair of brown loafers
and black pointy-toed Doc Martens.
Perhaps it was change in my hormonal balance or DNA structure
that inspired the desire for a fashionable shoe selection. If
I was Sting, I'd probably say something Jungian, like I was letting
my feminine side show. But I wasn't about to tell shoe salesmen
that I was looking for something to bring out the Sting in me.
I perused several pairs of ankle high boot shoes in sky blue,
lemon and silver. Silver made me feel like my feet were crying
out for attention. That wasn't the signal I wanted to give off.
Besides the $150 was a little more than I wanted to gamble on
an adventurous change in my wardrobe. As a last ditch effort,
I stumbled into a store called Dudes on Fourth Street that was
having a sale. With name like Dudes, I figured Pauley Shore and
Dweezil Zappa had probably been by the place and bought all of
the good stuff, but as my mom always says, "a sale's a sale."
The place smelled of denim jeans and incense. The sales-dude told
me that the owner had gotten really into cowboy boots this season.
I picked up a pair of snakeskin numbers, eyed the $400 price tag
and gulped.
"We've got a couple of pairs of Doc Martens left in the back,"
he assured me.
I took a cursory glance and just as I was about to leave, did
a double-take on some shiny, copper-tone lace-up boots.
They were Doc Marten knock-offs made by Juliano's, a company that
had recently gone under, he explained. I guess the name was supposed
to give a boot made in Taiwan some Italian cache. Their chestnut
hue was dark enough so I wouldn't feel like I was wearing a neon
sign, but the metallic sheen made me think I was coasting smoothly
in sleek roadsters.
"How much?"
"Uh," he gave the shoes a once over, "$25."
That?s not a gamble, I reasoned, that's a message from God.
Co-workers, relatives, friends of the family and even strangers
in museums and supermarkets were all smitten with the shoes. I
couldn't help feeling a little like Cinderfella (and not the Jerry
Lewis version, either). Maybe I wasn't king, but these clodhoppers
had done more for my self-confidence than years of therapy ever
could. (I've actually never been in therapy, but just trust me
on this one.) My entire decision-making process was validated
every time someone said "wow, cool shoes."
One woman at a party told me: "I always judge a man's fashion
sense by his shoes." (Of course I didn't know what to think when
I got a load of her husband's bland balmorals.) At the same soirée,
a professor from Bryn Mawr brought up Frederick Jameson's discourse
on capitalism that compares Van Gogh's painting of shoes to Andy
Warhol's drawings. "Quite fascinating," I mused.
A friend of mine who works at a local clothing company looked
at my boots and said, "Well, if you're going to start dressing
more fashionably, why don't you stop by the shop and I'll give
you a couple of free T-shirts." Free clothes! This bargain buy
was already paying for itself and then some.
Then things started to come apart at the seams ? literally. You
know, there's a reason why people spend hundreds of dollars on
designer shoes instead of knock-offs: the real thing doesn't fall
apart within a matter of weeks. The sole began to peel away from
the body of the shoe. The first day I noticed it was happening
I had a date right after work to go see a play. As the afternoon
slipped away, the sole of my boot peeled off. It looked like the
Titanic after an iceberg had ripped through its hull.
By the time I realized how bad it was, it was too late to buy
new shoes. All the stores were closed. By the time I met my date,
the shoes sounded like a pair of flip flops and my confidence
was plunging rapidly.
"You sure you don't want to get some glue or something," she giggled.
We stopped by a supermarket, but all they had was Elmer's wood
glue: that gooey mess would only make matters worse.
I walked into the theater sounding like an old man waddling by
the side of a pool. I figured if I held my head high no one would
notice, but the folks in the lobby all looked down as I strolled
by.
The next day, I asked a cobbler for advice. Shoo Goo II was my
only hope. I pumped out half of the tube on my boot and let it
sit quietly for a day, recuperating. I imagined life without the
boots and it was horrendous. I couldn't go back, not after all
I'd learned. Just to be safe, I waited an extra day longer than
the directions suggested. The patch had taken, but who knew how
long before the boot would reject the implant?
The boots are even more dear to me now, but I realize they're
living on borrowed time. Besides, the look is starting to get
tired.
I went shopping again looking to buy my copper boots some friends.
It was even more frustrating than when I started because I'd already
seen the mountaintop. The only cool shoes I could find were designed
for women. Here's to hoping for another sign from God ? at a reasonable
price.
manstyle
Shoe Shine Boy