mass nerder: August 2010

Reading Elle the other day I saw that they are having a talent contest thing for writers, and the winner gets published in the magazine which is cooool. The criteria was that the piece had to be around 900 words, had to begin with 'Do you really need another pair of shoes?' and had to show 'intelligence, wit, elegance, style and a convincing argument'. Dunno if I nailed all those and it's a loooong loooong shot but this is what I submitted (I added the pictures in so it doesn't look boring!):

"Do you really need another pair of shoes?" my mum always asks, with a hint of mischief twinkling in her eyes that really tells me that, although I don't necessarily 'need' them in the same way I need oxygen to breathe or water to live, she wants me to have them just as much as I do.

This is because if there is one thing my mother knows, it is the importance of a vastly impressive and covetable shoe collection. I remember being four years old, looking up in wide-eyed awe at the hundreds of shoes, piled precariously on top of each other, proudly displayed along the top of her old, mahogany wardrobe, and knowing that if I tried to release a pair or two to play dress-up with, I could very well meet my demise on the recieving end of a stiletto avalanche. Some of my earliest, and fondest, memories are sitting with her, watching Brookside and Blind Date, while she readied herself for a Saturday night out on the town. She would go through five or six, or ten, pairs of shoes; kitten heels, sandals, stilettos, sandals again, flats, square-toed, pointy-toed, square-toed again, then back to the kitten heels, always asking my opinion before finally deciding on the perfect pair. Of course, I didn't know it then, but this is undeniably where my approach to dressing comes from: always choose the shoes first, and work around them. The first, and arguably the most important, life lesson my mother taught me was that shoes can make or break an ensemble. The correct choice of footwear is, undeniably, the glue that holds an outfit together.

It wasn't until my late teens that I started to realise the true importance of this early style master-class. I was infinitely unstylish throughout secondary school (well, who wasn't?) and I truly embraced the fact that the idea of 'fashion' never featured on my radar. As well as being unstylish, I was also embracing teen angst. My rebellion manifested itself, as it does with so many other teenage girls, as pushing my mother as far away as was humanly possible. The turning point for our strained relationship happened when I was seventeen years old, on a shopping expedition that was orchestrated by my father, in an attempt to encourage some much-needed mother-daughter bonding. We were in a generic high street shop, and I picked up a pair of stunning black and white brogue-style lace-up heels and announced with pure glee, "These remind me of a pair of shoes you used to have, I love them!" and my mother proceeded to nearly cry and take them to the till immediately, while telling me "These are your first pair of proper shoes! You will love them forever!".

I know that it would be ridiculous to claim that a pair of shoes 'saved' my relationship with my mother, but they weren't far off. Since that pair of shoes came into our lives, our bond, as well as my growing shoe collection, has gone from strength to strength. Every birthday and Christmas, and sometimes in between, my mum treats me to a new pair to add to my blossoming assortment. We heatedly debate over the merits of square-toe versus pointy-toe, hidden platforms versus wedges, kitten heels versus towering stilettos, ballet pumps versus plimsolls, and of course, the ultimate battle, flats vs heels. As well as being the glue that holds together an outfit, shoes are quite definitely a huge part of the formula that holds my mother and I together.

Following in the footsteps (there is a definitely pun in there somewhere) of my mum, I have started to display the true gems of my collection, proudly, on an old bookshelf on my side of the bedroom that I share with my boyfriend. I like to think it is the centre piece of the room, although everyone else just thinks it's a tad excessive, and I am often faced with the questions, “Is that really necessary?” and, more commonly, "Do you really need all those shoes?". The obvious answer is no, of course. Those shoes don't contribute hugely to my ability to breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce or any of the other things integral to the fabric of life, although I do like to think that I sleep better knowing that they are next to me while I snooze. A gigantic collection of shoes may not be a necessity, but my life certainly feels enriched whenever I look at the variety and ferocity perched on that dusty old bookcase. The fact that when my parents emigrated to Australia earlier this year, my mum had more boxes of shoes to ship than the rest of the household items combined, goes a long way to illustrate the true connection that so many women, including myself, feel with their 'excessive' and, of course, unnecessary collection of footwear.

So, next time someone poses the question "Do you really need another pair of shoes?", I will think of the poor removals men who had to lug four boxes, containing just my mother's brown and tan boots, around, and reply with a resounding "Yes!", and I think you should do the same.