Happiness by the foot

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‘The surprise and delight of shoes’

I love shoes. There’s something about looking down and spotting a snappy pair that makes me smile.

Check out (hah) these leather Vans. (Smiley face goes here)

My Mom is the same way. I look forward to my Kid of the Month Club visits not just because I get to see my super-fun Mom, but also because I get to see her super-fun footwear.

Mom in one of her many pairs of cute shoes. Her even cuter accessory? Youngest Younger Brother Doug

What is it about shoes that so delights? Well, compared to clothes, which can mysteriously “shrink” — or even lengthen — in your closet, shoes that fit well when you buy them pretty much stay that way. (As for clothes that get longer, see ‘Skirting the Issue’ for a tale of trailing taffeta.)

Shoes also seem to be an immune to “mutton dressed as lamb” syndrome. (In case you’re not familiar with that particular phrase, it refers to an older woman wearing clothes designed for younger people. It’s not flattering — either the phrase or the wearing.) I’ve written a post about this called “Just Because It Fits Doesn’t Mean You Should Wear It.”  But with shoes, as long as you have good legs — and, even more important, good balance — even heels are okay when you’re, um (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) over 70.

As for the surprising aspect of shoes, it’s fun to top off (or underline?) a conservative outfit with a jolt of the unexpected. Just yesterday I attended a big fancy meeting wearing black and white — plus these babies:

If I followed the Yellow Brick Road in these, I wouldn’t be able to see my feet

A quick note about when and where to wear cool shoes. Don’t waste your time if you’re going out to dinner. You’ll be seated at a table and no one will see your feet, much less your kicks. Concentrate instead on fun up top: necklaces, scarves, fun frames. A tiara.

What was I wearing on my feet? Who knows, and who cares? It was all about that tiara, baby

Shoes get a better chance to shine when worn to places people can actually see them. Think cocktail party or art opening. Someplace you’ll be standing. Or, if sitting’s more your style, think lectures. Recitals. Especially boring ones where people’s attention — and eyes — tend to wander. Trust me, your fellow coop board members will appreciate a fancy upper.

I broke my rule and wore the Vans to dinner. Where they drew no admiring glances. And actually disappeared into the floor

You can even surprise yourself with shoes. If you buy them off-season when there are deep discounts (like I do) then put them away, you’ll get a big kick out of “discovering” them months later. “Gosh,” you’ll say to yourself as you open a Tory Birch box stored with your summer clothes, “I forgot all about these! What fun!”

Look what I found in the back of my closet! Thank you, Tory Birch

New York City. May 2023

 

 

 

Accessories after the fact

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‘An ode to those pieces of personality that spice up your wardrobe — and your life’

During the last big ole bad recession, there was a piece in The Times about how handbag sales hadn’t been hurt. Even though they had less money to put inside them, City Ladies were still toting It Bags like that Chanel number with the chains. There were even waiting lists to get Birkins and Kellys.

Well. Having lived and worked in Manhattan for over 30 years, this didn’t surprise me one bit. In fact, I wrote a letter to said Times after reading this piece saying, essentially, that it’s no wonder that accessories are recession-proof. After all, in Manhattan your coat is your car, your shoes are your wheels — and your handbag is your trunk. Yes, they printed it.

Me, demonstrating the Mary Tyler Moore trick: throw a scarf over a turtleneck for instant workplace polish

Speaking of It Bags and speaking of work, I once had a freelance gig at Grey Advertising. The gig paid well but was very boring. It was so boring that I asked for extra work to kind of spice things up. No dice. They wanted me to work on whatever the heck it was and be quiet about it. (This was when Grey had a reputation for work so mundane that headhunters would tell you to take it off your work record — otherwise your resume would have “the stink of Grey.” I mean, this was an ad agency that put posters of their frozen turkey ads in the elevator.)

I’m a fast worker, so I’d do whatever boring project they wanted done, then roam the nabe. On one of my sigh-filled ramblings I discovered a designer resale shop. A really good designer resale shop. This was about twenty years ago, but I still get compliments on the stuff I bought when I was taking Boredom Breaks. A Pucci jacket. A Chanel pants suit with tulle trim. A hot pink boucle Dior number with a detachable mink collar. (Some of these have been “downsized,” mainly because I came to realize that when you wear “vintage” at my age no one gets the irony. They just think you’ve owned that gold brocade Christian LeCroix for a very long time.)

One of the coats I “downsized” to The Child. I had to borrow it back recently. She didn’t mind. Or, if she did, she didn’t let on

One of the things I kept eyeing in that shop was a Kelly bag. Now, if you know anything about the Kelly, you know that it was named after Grace Kelly and is very ladylike and very cool. Also very expensive. This one was also Kelly green. I mean, how cool would it be to own a Kelly green Kelly bag? Well. I did the math: How many days would I have to be “bored Grey” to earn that bag? (That’s how I’d decide whether I could afford something: I’d take the price and divide it by my day rate.)

I started a little negotiation with the proprietress. “That’s a nice Kelly” I said, hoping to hide the glee in my voice. “But I wish it was in a more basic color. LIke black.” To which she replied, “Are you kidding? If you carry a Kelly green Kelly, everyone will think you have a black one at home!” Brilliant. But nope. I didn’t buy it. Which is probably a good thing, because we had another recession around then and my Grey gig dried up. At least I could stop being bored.

A curated selection of things I don’t get bored looking at. Including some handbags on the top shelf

Now I admit to a certain accessorial (is that a word? if not, it should be) obsession. Not only are coats and shoes and handbags practical when your commute involves walking — and yes, even if you take subways and buses, you still do a great deal of walking when you live and work here — they can help you make your clothes work a little harder.

Given a good arsenal of accessories, why you could basically wear the same thing every single day and look different each and every time. The picture at the top of this post is a demonstration of my Wedding Outfit. I swear I’ve worn that same pale green dress to dozens of weddings. I just change the jacket and the shoes. And yes, some of the weddings have the same people in attendance. No one’s noticed. Yet. Though I suppose I should spring for something new for The Child’s Real Wedding in August.

Same dress, different wedding. I have no idea who those people are, tho they could have easily been at one of the other weddings too

Yes, I love accessories. Bags and shoes and coats and scarves and jewelry. Heck, I even treat glasses as accessories. I have frames in red and blue and black and tortoiseshell. They transform a look — and hide the bags under my eyes.

But there is one accessory I haven’t collected and am decidedly not in love with:

Nope, it’s not the hat. I love that trapper hat. It’s the mask. Even tho I did get that one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it’s definitely not going on any curated shelf

New York City. March 2022

Trainspotting

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‘Celebrity sightings, and accessories after the fact’

Twitter was aflitter last week with Helen Mirren sightings. She was on the R. She was on the Q. Whatever the letter, she was on the subway. And she looked so amazing (she is 69! that can’t be her!) that her fellow riders sometimes doubted the evidence of their own eyes. You can read an amusing summary of their internet astonishment here.

So where was I when all this subterranean drama was unfolding? Alas, I was consumed with Scary Dental Issues (see ‘Is it Safe?’ for colorful detail). But now I’m ready for some rhapsodizing about la Mirren and some blathering about Celebrity Sighting in General (well in general in Manhattan, anyway.)

See, one of the reasons that celebrities love being in Manhattan is that Manhattanites ignore them. Completely. Famous People can walk around, stand in Shake Shack lines, ride on the subway — all in relatively unmolested peace. It is considered extremely uncool (and very non-New-Yorker-ish) to go up to the Celebrity of One’s Daydreams and say something like Continue reading