Comments on: Where the price points are

By: CGHill

CGHill — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:56:01 +0000

I'm reprinting this comment from Juliet on Plumcake's original post at Manolo for the Big Girl, simply because it seems to fit here too: "...one pair of $300 shoes is better than ten $30 dollar ones." (Source.)

By: CGHill

CGHill — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:42:02 +0000

They’re probably down at Payless, buying the same $30 shoe for the third time because the first one broke a heel and the second one’s buckle is peeling something awful.

By: Rhiannon

Rhiannon — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:19:18 +0000

Far be it from me to deny someone the chance to indulge in a little imaginary class warfare, but most of my shoes are from the “ultra premium” category and every single pair was bought one bag lunch at a time. I work for a living, and part of the reason I work is so I can afford to surround myself with things that bring me joy. A pair of pale blue watercolor heels made out of archival anaconda for Dior –where each scale is hand-painted and the heel is carved start-to-finish by a single artisan– brings me incredible joy.

A shoe like that isn’t just a work of tremendous skill and beauty; it’s a piece of cultural history. The shoe I buy and wear today is the shoe that in 40 years will be in a costume institute; in a hundred it will be in a museum, an example of the finest product the most talented artists and artisans of the day could create, and I will have been a part of that.

That’s special to me. So if I walk by in my hard-earned thousand dollar shoes and someone wants to sniff and dismiss me as some pampered creature with more money than sense because it’s easier or more fun to be bigoted then there’s not much I can do about it. I guess the only thing I can wonder is what in their lives gives them the same sort of joy I get from living in and with extraordinary works of art, and then wonder what they’re doing with it now.

By: Tatyana

Tatyana — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:26:00 +0000

McG, this is not the first time when Chaz post something related to WOMEN’ shoes you reply about YOUR habits.
I don’t know what to think of your gender.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:12:54 +0000

Hmmm. The four categories in my shoe hierarchy are (1) boots, (2) shoes, (3) flip-flops, and (4) old shoes I can wear as slippers.

Flip-flops only outrank old-shoe slippers because I can wear flip-flops as flip-flops when they’re new.

By: CGHill

CGHill — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:41:49 +0000

Well, it wasn't my set of categories; apparently this is the way that the shoe biz, or at least that particular segment of it, classifies things. And Birks have a market niche, despite snarky detractors.

By: fillyjonk

fillyjonk — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:30:06 +0000

Juicy Couture makes shoes? Do they have “JUICY” emblazoned on the back of the heel?

There’s another category that you may have missed: solidly-made shoes designed by people who understand the mechanics of feet. (Or maybe that’s some of the “basic designer” labels). Most of my shoes fall into that category, because I’m on my feet A LOT, I have some semi-congenital foot issues (pronation is just one of them), and I have to choose shoes that don’t wind up crippling me by the end of the day – SAS, Birkenstock (ugly as they are, they work), and some of the other German or British brands, like Haflinger and Hotter fall into this category.

I suspect that the “ultra premium” shoes serve the same semiotic purpose that the long, heavily manicured nails on women serve: an obvious marker of “I don’t have to work for a living” – so they don’t spend enough time on their feet to put expensive shoes (or their Achilles’ tendons) at risk.