Summer is my favorite shoe season. And why not? It's prime time for colorful, patterned, and open-toe styles (even if it does mean that I have to keep my toenails painted :). To celebrate my (and hopefully your!) excitement, I put together this mostly hot weather-themed wheel o' heels. Here's where I found each pair, starting from the top right and going clockwise:
MetroStyle
Chaps, Kohl's (I never dreamed I'd buy anything Chaps, but these far-from-preppy gold stunners reeled me in.)
Worthington, JCPenney
Worthington, JCPenney (Although these are the plainest of the pack colorwise, I love the shape, side bow, and contrasting cork platform and heel.)
Paris Hilton, Marshalls (Uh . . . I'm not even going to attempt to defend myself.)
Bijou, MetroStyle
City Streets, JCPenney
Speaking of heels, the April Cosmopolitan interview with Olivia Wilde offers up an interesting slant on the topic. Here are the first and last paragraphs:
"On a recent glorious day in New York City, I was standing outside my apartment building feeling pretty fantastic when a 75-year-old lady with purple bifocals, a matching muumuu, Einstein's perm, and sensible white sneakers stopped me, grabbed my hand, and said in a Brooklyn accent only Gilda Radner could mimic perfectly, "Oh! Those heels! Your feet must be dying! Who are you wearing them for? Dress for you. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks."
(Movies, Hollywood, the Internet, blah blah blah, stuff in the middle of the article.)
"I think that woman on the street was an apparition, a projection of my subconscious, warning me of the danger of superficiality. She was right to make me question my masochist footwear, as they were painful enough to be promptly kicked aside upon entering my apartment, but she missed the mark on my motive. I was wearing them for me. They were my confidence trigger as I left the house and headed out into the world, and if that's what it takes to remind myself to put the sass back in my strut and be the best version of me, then so be it."
I can't tell you how many times strangers have asked me similar questions about my precarious footwear. (In fact, it happened just yesterday.) I'm always a little taken aback, torn between making fun of myself and fighting for my right to be frivolous. So, I could identify with what the article was saying. (Although it should be noted that unlike the author [notice I didn't say "Olivia," as we have no idea if this was her sentiment or some fabrication of the Cosmo editorial staff], I'm supportive of purple-bifocal-and-muumuu-wearing old ladies, mouthiness and all.) The final paragraph gives Olivia and her stilettos the last laugh (hokey apparition and dangers of superficiality notwithstanding), confirming what I'm sure most heel-loving women already know; we wear what we wear because it makes us feel good, not because we think we should. If anything, flaunting out-there footwear seems to meet with more judgment than approval, as illustrated by this interview. Heel wearers are trailblazers, not conformists.
And on that note, I think I've stretched the intellectual capacity of a post about shoes as far as it can (and should) go.
