Suz, 10N

I know, I know. I haven't been here in MONTHS. What can I say? The winter did me in. I hibernated in my cave. I mourned the months of wearing boots and practical shoes for slogging through slush.

Now here I am - like a bear coming out of her cave (OK, that's not a very flattering analogy) um, let me see. I know! A butterfly coming out of its chrysalis. Yeah, that's it.

So anyway, like a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis as the weather warms, so do beautiful shoes start to appear on the feet of my fellow commuters. A peep toe here, a darling little ballet flat there, and some fierce stilettos being worked down that snow free street with glee. Oh, it does my heart good. It really does.

Woe to the woman clomping down the street in practical shoes! She is the most unfortunate of the unfortunates. She lacks the style gene. She lacks self-awareness. She lacks awareness of the season. She just...lacks.

My shoe of the day (or perhaps month at the rate I've been posting):

Manolo Blahnik Leopard Print D'Orsay Sandal

Liesl, 7N

If you read the comments on my last post you will see that a lovely young lady in Israel has been asking for advice on shoes for a young lady living in the land of the Crocs wearers. I feel so terrible for this young lady, having to see so many of those things everywhere she goes! It is my ethical duty to help her.

In my search for shoe sites that ship to Israel, or anywhere in the middle east, I was astounded to find that none of them do ship to the middle east. I am dumbfounded! It's not like the middle east is populated with only poor people. Hello? oil? Shoe sites are seriously missing the boat on this one. If I had the ability I would start a site that ships to the middle east, and I'd rake it in. Hey, this is MY idea! Don't go stealing it!

Back to ethical duty. As you all know, I believe it is my duty to rid the world of bad shoes and to educate the women and men and children who wear them. I was thrilled to be asked for advice by a young lady of obvious good taste. It got me to wondering, as all things do, if I really should force people to be educated about shoes. I mean, it's not like I would be doing a bad thing, right? Benefit would come out of this force! And no one ever called someone as sweet and chic as me a fascist. I think I would be doing the world a great service in forcing them to see true shoe reason.

Maybe I should start a "church": The Church of Shoeology.

Today's favorite shoe:

Bruno Frisoni

Liesl, 7N

Suz will be coming back to the blog someday, I promise.

I have been putting off writing about the Balenciaga exhibit at the Meadows Museum because it requires a great deal of thought and introspection. I went to the exhibit over a week ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head since.

The clothes were, in a word, sublime. Seeing that exhibit drives home the point that true style is timeless as many of the dresses, hats and shoes were from the 50s. When you see a gown like this you know that there is such a thing as style that never ends or dies. Some people say love never dies; I say that is equally true of style.

This all got me to wondering if fashion and fabulousness were akin to love. I know some people will scoff at the notion but they are not seeing beautiful fashion as it should be seen: necessary. Think of how boring and cheap our world would be if our only options were the latest styles from Tommy Hilfiger and Jessica McClintock. I just threw up a little bit at the thought. Think of it this way: if we can describe love popularly as a many splendored thing, can't we use those same words for fashion? What you get from a pair of Louboutins is entirely different from what you get from a pair of Weitzmans; however, the love of both is equal insofar as it is valid and necessary for a happy existence.

There is this popular belief among people who study aesthetics that sublimity only comes to mankind when we view something in nature, or when we view art that reminds us of the power of nature. I heartily disagree. Sublimity is man's attempt at finding their soul through art and touching the outer limits of the beautiful. If you accept that contention then you must accept that shoes fall into that category; shoes are, to be precise, little pieces of art made so that we can have art, beauty and sublimity everywhere we go. We walk through our lives knowing that we are sublime; we are beauty; we are indelibly linked to all that is beautiful in life.

Do you want to challenge my love/fashion/sublimity assertion? Remember this: I know shoes better than you do and I can argue until paisley comes back in style. I can argue until pill box hats come back in style. I can argue until Nehru jackets come back in style. I can even argue until acid washed jeans come back in style. You understand that means forever, right?

Now go get a pedicure and be worthy of sublimity in its material form.

Today's favorite shoe:

Jimmy Choo

Liesl, 7N

My quest for the perfect black slide continued today. I met my mom at Nordsrom's to see a pair of shoes she had seen featured in an ad in the paper; they were too utilitarian for me but I decided to try them on anyway. They really weren't for me but the salesman brought out another pair by the same designer. I tried those on, and... I bought them.

Have you ever been seduced by a comfortable pair of shoes? I know I don't have to ask this question about fabulous shoes because those shoes need very little seduction to land in your shopping bag. You know how it goes: you see them, they flirt just slightly, pretty much ignoring your existence but still allowing themselves to be viewed; they somehow manage to find their way onto your feet and onto your Neiman's InCircle card. Wham, bam, thank you Mr. Louboutin.

No, what I am referring to is, trying on a pair of not so fabulous shoes because the salesman brought them out and you can't believe how comfortable they are and how good they feel on your feet. You know what you're thinking: "They really are not my style and they look old lady-ish but ohmyfreakinggod, they are so comfortable. I could walk in these for days and my feet would never hurt!" I think we've all done it and, more often than not, regretted it.

I did it today. I am ashamed to admit that I bought these shoes in black. I am going to take them back, not to worry. But I swear, they are so unbelievably comfortable. I just don't understand why these people who make comfortable shoes also don't seem to have even a vague sense of style. Do comfortable shoe designers sign some sort of pledge that forces them to only design ugly grandmother traipsing through Italy on a package tour shoes?

In the end, we went to one of my favorite shoe stores, Fossee's. They have left-overs of mid range designer shoes for reasonable prices. I can't find the two pairs of slides I bought online but I did end up getting a black pair. They aren't exactly what I was looking for, they're better. And all was not lost at Nordstrom's; I did manage to get a fabulous pair of Anne Klein slides for a steal. I like slides. A lot.

There is nothing wrong with being free with your virtue if it gets you fabulous shoes.

Today's favorite shoe:

Tory Burch

Liesl, 7N

I am looking for the perfect pair of black slides. You know, the kind of shoes you will know as soon as you see them? I went to DSW the other day and was perusing the sandals when I heard a man near me chuckling; I glanced up to see a nice looking salesman looking at me and giggling. When he noticed me looking at him he told me that he couldn't help but laugh because I was concentrating so hard. He said I looked like I was involved in some very serious business. He was right; I was looking for the perfect pair of black slides.

Sadly, I didn't find those slides that day. I went to Northpark today with my mom to try and find them there; no luck. I went to two department stores and several small shoe stores and could not find a pair that fit. They were all way too wide. It also happens to be the big sale at Dillard's and Nordstrom's and guess what? all of those shoes were too wide, too. OK, not all of them; I did get these boots (first pair, second row) for a ridiculously low price. Score!

A funny thing happened on the way to the Nordstrom's shoe department: I ran into a student who took one of my classes last summer. She asked me what I was doing there and then immediately said, oh, you're shoe shopping, of course. As you can infer, there isn't a person who knows me who doesn't know that I have mad shoe love. She also told me that she would take any class I offered because she loved my class so much. She is a good kid.

The best teachers are the ones who have fabulous taste in shoes.

Today's favorite shoe:

Christian Louboutin

Liesl, 7N

I was sitting at the airport two nights ago when I saw a woman who was wearing bright yellow patent leather peep toe pumps, carrying a bright yellow bag, and she had her hair pulled up in a plastic heart barrette. This woman was probably at least 30, by the way. As I was sitting there staring at her (yes, I know it's rude) I wondered if I had the moral duty to tell her that she was violating so many rules of fashion and taste? She obviously didn't know better and I know how embarrassing it can be to look back on past fashion indiscretions; should I have helped her? Would it have been helping her? The reality is, she would not have taken it in the spirit it was offered and probably would have tried to kick me with her horrid pumps. Ah well.

I still have to wonder, though, if we should help our friends in this way? We were at the airport to meet two lovely ladies, friends of ours, who had a layover. One of these lovely ladies was wearing Crocs. Now you know I had to kid her about those shoes, especially since I was wearing fabulous flats (of course), but I wonder if I should have dashed back to the car and grabbed some better shoes for her to wear? Some people keep spare tires in their trunk, I keep spare shoes. I know she would have felt like a better person if she had been wearing any shoe other than Crocs.

The question remains: where does our moral duty lie? I feel morally obligated to talk Suz into getting the fabulous shoes she has talked herself out of; I feel morally obligated to talk Jen out of the boring shoes she's talked herself into; I feel morally obligated to wear fabulous shoes as a beacon of all that is good in shoeland. Maybe I should also be obligated to comfort and educate the bad shoed masses, too. The world would be a kinder, gentler, prettier place. That settles it! from now on, I will help educate the masses about their poor shoe choices.

Don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for awhile; heels hurt when they land on your shins but I must soldier on for the good of women everywhere.

Today's favorite shoe:

Emporio Armani

Liesl, 7N

I was listening to one of my favorite shows on NPR yesterday and they were interviewing the director of the Meadows Museum here in Dallas. They are having a Balenciaga exhibit (more on that in another post) at the moment and they were talking about the need to make the mannequins and the dresses have "movement." When I was a teenager and taking pictures for a portfolio, one of the things I heard most often was that my pictures implied movement and that was a good thing. Now, this topic is not just a brag on how gorgeous I used to be; I want to talk about when we take this movement thing too far.

For your consideration, there is this picture. I'm a fan of Spanks; I was raised to never leave the house without lycra on my thighs, but come on! That picture is just silly. Who poses like that? And how weird is it that it a picture of 4 disembodied legs? Creepy! At least the shoes are fabulous.

The moral of the story? Movement is only good when it implies natural movement or pretty movement; not weird tippy toe movement by leg monsters from Mars. And what does this have to do with shoes? As I said, leaving the house without lycra on your thighs is only for supermodels.

I'm going to tippy toe out the door with my thighs encased in lycra, now.

Today's favorite shoe:

Faconnable "Charlize"

Liesl, 7N

You have to love a woman of action. You have to love a woman of action who has her priorities straight even more. Did you know that Dr. Ruth Westheimer was an Israeli sniper? It's true! The wee sex goddess sniped as a teenager and she always kept her priorities intact. In talking about an incident on her 20th birthday in which her legs were almost blown off from a cannon ball she had this to say:

"The strangest thing was that all I could think about was whether there might be some blood on the brand-new shoes I had just gotten for my birthday, and amazingly there wasn't even a drop on them, which was all I cared about in some kind of strange denial." http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/drruth.asp

Now, I don't think she was in denial; I think she had her wits about her and was displaying her famous composure in the face of shocking and stimulating situations. Our little Dr. assessed the situation and saw that her precious shoes were safe and she knew that she was going to be OK. See? shoes can even be the beacon of all that is right in our lives in the face of great danger. They are, quite simply, multifaceted pieces of fabulous.

On a not entirely unrelated note: Suz and I were just IMing and she had talked herself out of these shoes. I managed to talk her back into them and now she is the proud owner of a gorgeous pair of silver Linea Paolo flats. What are friends for if not to lead us down the path of fabulousness?

Have shoes, will travel.

Today's favorite shoe:

Bettye Muller "Linley"