Tuesday 20 September 2011

The Shoes, and why they're 'it'.


I am walking tall on the shoe world’s equivalent of a mullet. These enchanting babies are all black suede business at the front, and then WOW! There’s a fabulous, guest-list-only, leopard-skin wedge-shaped party going on at the back.
I defy anyone not to wear these and think "Today, I really am it".
These are the shoes that suggest a haughty entrance; a comment delivered, eyebrow raised. They give stature without wobble, and then when you leave, they demand a Cheryl Cole wink be tossed casually over your shoulder. LOVE. THEM.
What they're not is clear cut, and I like to think that I’m rarely ambiguous. As a communications professional it would be somewhat career limiting. But aren’t there days when you bounce out of bed with a twinkle in your eye and jump into an outfit that says "Make of that what you will!"
Days when your diary does not get to decide what you’re going to wear.
Some of you may be saying right now "Genevieve, my diary never gets a say. I’m a confident woman who dresses entirely for her own pleasure or comfort." And I salute you. I wish I were the same, but the truth is, there are days when my schedule is so sartorially conflicted it’s a wonder I get in at all.
Or perhaps you’re worrying that going off piste outfit-wise now and then could be seen as neither seemly nor polite in certain circles. You’d have a point. My advice would be to go for it anyway but stay out of Waitrose.
But, look, these are the shoes, and boy do they put a spring in my step. Far more so than those bouncy flip flops I’ve been tanking round in all summer in the War Against Thighs (we’re all wearing them – can anyone tell if they’re working?).
There can be a thin line, I admit, between confident individuality and an ensemble only really suitable for people spray painted silver and working in street theatre. I speak with some experience, having been persuaded to let go, reluctantly, of a favourite ‘look’ which involved a tails coat and my grandfather’s cavalry spurs. (I was 17. Don’t tell me you weren’t wearing exactly the self same thing at that age.)
But for now the line should always be between you and those baffling trousers that can zip into shorts and back again – presumably ideal for days when you really have to have a paddle at lunchtime. And jumper dresses. I’m sorry, but no amount of witty accessorising can make me look stylish swathed in itchy cable knit. I have tried.
In a world of tribes and this season’s looks, of dressing for your shape, size, age and blood type, who doesn’t cherish that petit quelque chose that doesn’t quite fit? Or that fits perfectly, but… you know what I mean.
When puzzling over advice from fashion editors about how to wear Autumn’s must-have leather leggings (didn’t they tell us a couple of years ago on NO ACCOUNT to wear leather trousers unless we were Elle McPherson?), isn’t it nice to have something indisputably ‘you’ in your closet?
For what it’s worth, they went down a storm at work. I haven’t heard such an emphatic chorus of approval since a colleague’s husband got behind with the ironing and she had to come to work in a cocktail dress.
And so there they are. The shoes. They’re not iconic, fierce or directional – I’m no Daphne Guinness. But they’re mine. *winks*