Like many women, I love shoes. In fact, at one time, I am embarrassed to admit, I had 47 pairs of shoes. I only know because I counted them after overhearing a student in a writing class talking with her male group members about the number of shoes she owned: over 100 pairs. The boys were shocked.
One of them asked, “Why do you have so many pairs of shoes? Is it because you are a beauty queen?” (She actually was a beauty pageant winner who was training and preparing for the Miss America contest. Glamour ran an article on her, but for the life of me, I cannot recall her title, just her first name and her amazing green eyes. That was at least 25 years ago.)
“Well, that’s part of it,” she replied. “I have to buy shoes for pageants and special appearances. But mostly, it’s just because I love shoes.”
I chuckled to myself before stopping to ask the members of the group if they had any questions about the in class project I had assigned for that day.
“Dr. Adams, can I ask you a question,” one of the boys asked. “How many pairs of shoes do you have?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I replied. “A lot.”
“Why do women need so many shoes?” another boy in the group asked. “I mean, I just have four pairs of shoes: a pair of jogging shoes, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of loafers, and a pair of flip flops.”
“I can’t speak for other women,” I said, “but I have a lot of shoes because you can always find a pair of shoes that fits, even on days when nothing else you try on does. Plus, I have found that I usually need a variety of types of shoes so that I have the appropriate shoes for every occasion. For instance, I have found that I need at least one pair of navy shoes, one pair of black shoes, one pair of white shoes, a pair of tennis shoes, at least one pair of sandals, and a pair of rain boots. (The parking lot at the university flooded regularly after a good rain, so most of the female faculty kept a pair of rain boots in their car just to be safe. I bought two pair, one for the office and one for the car, after I ruined a pair of very nice leather flats.
The boys’ eyes started to glaze over, but I wasn’t finished yet. The beauty queen had a big grin on her face as she had some idea of where I was going with my answer.
“And then, of course,” I went on, “you have to have heels to wear when dressing up for work or a special occasion and flats to wear on the you’re you just cannot bear to stand in heels all day. Multiply each color I just mentioned, and you are up to six pairs of shoes. Since women’s shoes come in a variety of colors like red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet or purple, black, white, and an incredible variety of two-tone or even multiple color styles, you may have at least 16 pairs of shoes. Additional considerations like plain leather versus patent leather, fabric versus leather, manmade versus leather, shoe type – slides, mules, heels, boots, sandals, heel height, decorative touches, etc. and the number of possibilities is nearly endless!”
“That’s just crazy,” another boy said. “I had no idea that women’s fashion choices were so complicated!”
“Well, it’s not that complicated,” the girl member of the group volunteered. “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to get dressed up and coordinate your shoes with your clothes and your accessories. You guys do the same thing.”
“We do not!” the three boys in the group exclaimed.
“Sure you do,” she said. “Don’t you have certain clothes and shoes that you wear to the gym? Don’t you have special clothes and shoes for going to church? Don’t you have special outfits and shoes for the various sports you play? Don’t you have clothes and shoes that you have to wear to work?”
“Yeah,” one of the boys replied. “But athletic shoes are an entirely different issue.”
“Well,” I said, trying to be diplomatic, “I guess we’ll all just have to agree to disagree. Now, why don’t you all try and focus on the assigned case study?”
Smiling, I moved on to the next group.
Later that night
That night, over dinner, I related the conversation to my husband.
“You DO have too many shoes,” he said. “I’ve been telling you that for years.”
“Well, in my defense,” I replied, “I only buy one or two pair of new shoes a year. Some of the shoes in the closet are at least 10 years old. If you shop carefully and buy quality shoes, they last a very long time. My mother and my grandmother taught me that.”
The conversation stuck with me, however, and that weekend I decided to take inventory. As I said earlier, I was embarrassed to discover exactly how many pairs of shoes I had.
I spent the better part of an hour culling the shoes I really didn’t need and boxing them up to donate to Goodwill, and I resolved not to ever let the situation grow out of hand again.
In my defense
I have my mother and my grandmother to blame in part for my formerly excessive, seemingly obsessive shoe collection.
You see I got hooked on shoes at an early age. My grandmother wore and my mother wears very unusual shoe sizes.
My grandmother wore a size 7AAAAA. My mother wears a 9.5 AAAA. Yes, those are real shoe sizes, but they are very difficult to find, as most shoe manufacturers do not make shoes in those widths and few department stores stock the ones that do.
Even Nordstrom, which is famous for its ladies shoe department, does not carry special sizes like those of my grandmother and my mother. In fact, I know of only two stores in Houston that do: Neiman Marcus and Brucettes, a store that specializes in hard to find sizes. Houston’s much beloved Sakowitz sold women’s shoes in very narrow widths but, sadly, Sakowitz shuttered its doors in 1990.
Cardinals shoe store was the most elegant ever
When I was a little girl in the late 1960s, my mother and my grandmother would take me with them to Sakowitz in Houston or to Frost Brothers in San Antonio to shop for shoes if they were not able to find what they wanted at Cardinals, a specialty shoe store in Corpus Christi, Texas, where my grandparents lived.
I loved going to Cardinals. Unlike the shoe department in most stores, Cardinals was always a place of quiet dignity. It had deep pile carpet and the walls were lined with displays of artfully lighted shelves of gorgeous shoes. The customer chairs were plush and comfortable. The light fixtures were brass with decorative candle light bulbs. Customers spoke to their friends and to the sales staff in soft voices. It was almost as quiet as the reading room at a fine university library. The salesmen were solicitous but never pushy, and they knew each customer by name. It was much like the exclusive Diogenes Club frequented by Sherlock’s brother Mycroft in the popular BBC series “Sherlock.”
I remember the excitement of waiting to see what wonderful surprises the Cardinals salesman had in store for my mother and my grandmother. He would emerge from the door to the back storeroom with box upon box of shoes piled in his arms like some type of circus clown juggling too many items at one time. Somehow, he would gracefully lower the boxes to the ground. Then, he would open each box and gracefully place one of the pair onto my mother’s or grandmother’s foot in much the same way as Prince Charming’s courtier did when Cinderella produced the other glass slipper.
Cardinals, like Sakowitz, is gone now, but I did find a newspaper ad the store placed in the Corpus Christi Caller in 1963, advertising “exotic” shoes for “women who love to be pretty and pampered”: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/204744/taj_of_india_shoe_ad_1963_corpus/
As with many other rare items, the shoes at Cardinals were expensive, but they were worth the price as they were exquisitely crafted. A pair of Almalfi by Rangoni™, made in Florence, Italy, for example, would last many years, even with frequent wear, as the many pairs of “vintage” 1960’s Amalfi shoes available online on sites like Etsy and eBay can attest.
Back in the days of Camelot: dressing like a princess
My mother was a Marine Corps officer’s wife, so she had to dress well for social activities like events at the Officers’ Club, luncheons at other wives’ homes, and my favorite: the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball, which, as the Marine Corps Community Services’ web site explains, “s a chance to get dressed to the nines, enjoy an evening of tradition, and celebrate the history of the Corps.” Marines are required to wear their dress blues. Wives and female dates of the officers were expected to wear a ball gown and, in my mother’s time, long white gloves were required as well. “Male guests,” the site explains, “should wear a suit and tie or tuxedo.”
I always looked forward to the weeks preceding the Marine Corps Birthday Ball because my mother would take me with her when she shopped for her gown and shoes. The PX, or Postal Exchange, the military’s version of Costco or Sam’s Club, offered a wide selection of household items, clothing, and shoes, but it did not carry the type of special occasion clothing and shoes my mother needed.
My mother always got her special dresses from Julian Gold, a boutique in Corpus Christi. My grandmother had shopped there for years, and I would accompany my grandmother and my mother to the store when lived in Kingsville just off the base at the Kingsville Naval Air Station. I always loved going to Julian Gold because the store smelled wonderful and had an enormous, round, bolstered white leather sofa that I was allowed to sit on while my grandmother and my mother shopped and tried on clothes.
When we were stationed elsewhere in the country, my grandmother would go to Julian Gold and one of the sales ladies would help her find a gown for my mother. The dress (or dresses) would arrive carefully wrapped in tissue paper in an enormous cardboard dress box. Those days were like Christmas! It was always such a treat to see what gorgeous confection lay inside.
Once my mother had found a floor length gown, it was time to shop for the appropriate shoes. Imagine a festive pair of Jimmy Choo heels like the ones favored by Princess Diana or a highly decorated pair of Manolo Blahnik sky high blue satin pumps with crystal encrusted buckles like the ones Mr. Big purchased for Carrie Bradshaw as her “something blue” when they were finally married. Those were the types of shoes my mother bought once a year for this very special occasion.
I can still remember the pair of my mother’s shoes that I liked the best: a pair of white t-strap sandals with the Amalfi by Rangoni™ logo in gold foil on the foot bed. The long strap of the T was decorated with a cascade of silver, blue, green, yellow, and pink crystal beads. I used to love wearing them (more like clomping around the house in them) to play dress up because the crystal beads tinkled when I clomped across the floor wearing them for games of dress up with my friends. Those shoes made me feel like a princess.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I found the very same shoes for sale on Etsy while conducting research for this piece! I sent the link to my mother, and she confirmed that they were indeed the exact same shoes that she had once owned. Sadly, the pair for sale on Etsy was a size 8 M and had already been sold, or I would have bought them for my mother.
The “Genie” Shoes
When I was talking with my mother about this piece, I asked if she had especially liked any of my grandmother’s shoes.
“Oh, Gammy [my nickname for my maternal grandmother] had so many beautiful shoes!” she exclaimed. “My favorites were a pair of platform sling back heels that my mother bought at DH Holmes in New Orleans in the very late 1940s.” She continued: ” I remember going to the shoe salon with her. The platform and strap were black lizard. The body of the shoe was white leather or suede with a black lizard curl on the instep of the shoe. My mother had lovely legs, and she always looked terrific in heels.”
Ironically, in my memories, my grandmother is always wearing what I called her “genie shoes,” her house slippers. They were metallic gold mules with slightly upturned toes. I have no idea where she bought them, but – once again – thanks to the wonder that is the Internet, I did find “vintage” pairs of the same shoes or sale on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/MelissaJoyVintage?ref=l2-shopheader-name)
I also learned that a company called Daniel Green, which is still in the business of making metallic slippers, made them. A different, but similar style, the “Glamour” slipper, which has a higher wedge heel, has replaced my grandmother’s “genie” shoes. I guess things haven’t changed as much as I thought! In fact, they are available for sale on the company’s web site: https://www.danielgreen.com/shop/pc/Daniel-Green-GLAMOUR-313p10131.htm.
I was dressed in a wonderful variety of special shoes, too, as a child
I loved going shopping for shoes in my size, too. Bill’s Shoe Box in Corpus Christi offered a seemingly endless supply of children’s shoes: red, yellow, white, and black patent Mary Janes by Stride Rite™ (availability of the various colors depended on the season); Keds™ in white, red, navy, and pink; saddle oxfords; Grasshopper™ sandals; tap shoes; ballet shoes and more. Every time my mother and I or my grandmother, my mother, and I visited the store for school shoes, Sunday School shoes, dance recital shoes, and summer camp shoes, the salesman brought out a high stack of shoeboxes for me just like the salesman did at Cardinals.
In part because I was an only child and the only grandchild, I always had elaborate ensembles for special occasions. My grandmother and my mother loved dressing me like a doll – I mean that in a good way. In every “candid” family photo of my childhood, I am dressed in perfectly coordinated outfits.
For example, take the Easter Sunday on which they dressed me all in yellow and white. I look like an ad for a high-end children’s clothing catalog, and I am posing like the sorority girl I would one day become.
As you can see in the photo, which I included at the top of this page, I’m wearing a white hat trimmed in yellow ribbon, a white coat with yellow polka dots (the dress underneath was a sleeveless number with a white top and yellow skirt) dress, white anklets, and yellow patent Mary Janes. A stuffed bunny dangles from my left hand; in my right hand is that day’s Sunday School lesson. See – I told you they dressed me like a doll!
The first pair of “grown-up shoes” is a rite of passage
In our family, getting your first pair of “grown-up shoes” is a rite of passage. My mother still remembers getting her first pair of “grown-up shoes,” a pair of navy and white Amalfi™ loafers from Cardinals, when she was twelve years old.
I received my first pair of “grown-up shoes,” a pair of black leather Ferragamo™ pumps from Neiman Marcus, as my college graduation present. Those shoes were the most finely crafted and comfortable heels I have ever worn, and I wore them A LOT!
I wore those black pumps to every job interview I had for ten years. I wore those shoes to friends’ weddings; I wore those shoes to my dissertation defense, and I wore those shoes to the Brazos Bookstore in 1994 to hear Tim O’Brien read from his latest book, In the Lake of the Woods. It was the first time I met him, and that meeting led to correspondence with O’Brien about his work that I used in my dissertation as well as the opportunity to bring him to Houston Baptist University to speak with my War in Literature students and give a reading from The Things They Carried. You could say that they were my “lucky” shoes!
In fact, I would still be wearing those shoes and the other six pair I collected over a nine-year period if my feet had not grown a half size while I was pregnant with my daughter.
And Then There Were Six
For the record, I should let you know that I haven’t paid more than $75 for a pair of dress shoes or any other type of shoe since my daughter was born in 1997. At one point, however, I did own six pairs of Ferragamos, the Ferrari™ of ladies shoes, thanks to being “in the know” about upcoming markdowns on designer shoes at Neiman Marcus’ biannual Last Call sale. I would never have been able to afford to buy those six pairs of Ferragamos if it were not for the significantly lower prices of the designer shoes at Last Call prices. Plus, working retail for five years in college and my first year of graduate school had conditioned me to “never, ever pay full price.”
In addition to the first pair of black Ferragamo pumps I received as a gift from my mother, I had a pair of beautiful but sensible navy pumps, a pair of faux snakeskin wedges, a pair of gorgeous black cap toe pumps (black leather upper with a black patent leather cap toe), a pair of to die for matte gold heels for special occasions, and a pair of amazingly comfortable red sling back loafers with the Ferragamo™ logo across the instep. The loafers were great because they went with everything from a pair of blue jeans to a pair of black or navy dress slacks.
Then I turned into Jabba the Hut
Then, in 1997, as my due date drew closer and closer, I turned into Jabba the Hut. Each week, each day it seemed, every part of my body grew larger as my daughter grew. My belly grew, my pelvis widened, my ankles disappeared, and my hands swelled to the point where I could not longer wear my wedding band. Worst of all, the ligaments in my feet began to loosen, causing my feet to spread and lengthen (and hurt).
It soon was impossible for me to tie the laces of the pair of white, size 10 Keds™ I had to buy, much less to wear any of my much beloved Ferragamo™ shoes or, for that matter, any of the other size 9.5 M shoes I had in my closet.
One day when I was feeling particularly enormous, my husband tried to comfort me.
“Honey,” he said, as I was trying to bend over my enormous belly to tie my tennis shoes, “I promise I will buy you all new Ferragamos after the baby is born.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you to say, and I appreciate the thought,” I replied, “but in all honesty, I don’t think we’ll be able to afford that gesture after the baby arrives.”
I was right. After my daughter was born (she was 9 lbs., 3 oz. and 23 1/2 inches long), my feet stayed a size 10. I was never able to wear any of my pre-pregnancy shoes again.
As soon as I was able, I donated all of my size 9.5 M shoes and sold my Ferragamos at a local high-end consignment store. I have yet to buy another pair of Ferragamo shoes.
Life with baby
As we now had a quickly growing baby to feed and clothe, I no longer bought expensive shoes of any kind, sale or no sale. I did continue to shop for deeply discounted shoes at the Talbots Outlet by my house, but the first two pairs of new shoes I bought were relatively inexpensive Naturalizer™ pumps in navy and black for work. They weren’t particularly pretty, but they were comfortable, serviceable, and fit.
Fit is one issue with low priced shoes from stores like Payless, Old Navy, and other discount retailers. The shoes are often cut too wide for my feet. That’s the primary reason I have never been able to buy truly inexpensive shoes other than flip flops.
Like my grandmother and my mother, I loved dressing my daughter in coordinated outfits and shoes. Fortunately, I discovered that Marshalls, where I had shopped for many years, had a great children’s department.
I learned from a Marshalls employee at the store closest to my house that new merchandise shipments were always delivered and put out on the sales floor on Wednesdays. If I visited the store often enough, I could find Stride Rite™ shoes in my daughter’s size at a fraction of the cost of buying them at Dillard’s, Macy’s, or even at the Stride Rite Outlet Store located over an hour away.
As a result, my daughter always had at least one pair of dress shoes and at least two pairs of tennis shoes. My favorites were a pair of red, yellow, green, and blue Stride Rite tennis shoes. I could never pull off wearing shoes like that, but my daughter really worked it!
And then came Nordstrom
I was able to keep my shoe spending within our budget until the day my husband and I took our daughter, then five, to the brand new Nordstrom store in Houston’s Galleria to buy her a pair of white Mary Janes for Easter church services. I had searched for a pair of white dress shoes in her size at just about every store in town, including Marshalls, with no luck.
I had heard that the ladies and children’s shoe departments at Nordstrom offered an amazing selection, so I asked my husband to take me and our daughter there to look for a pair of white shoes.
The children’s shoe department was the footwear equivalent of Dylan’s Candy Bar. While I perused the selections, my daughter found a pair of Mia™ espadrille sandals with yellow, green, and brown leather sunflower appliques on the instep and asked if she could try on a pair in her size.
After I picked out a pair of white dress shoes, we handed both pairs of shoes to the sales associate and sat down to wait. (I should note that we were very fortunate – at that time, Nordstrom did not carry Ferragamo shoes in children’s sizes as the store does today.)
Déjà vu
A few minutes later, I was taken back to my childhood in an instant. The young man assisting us emerged from the stock room with a double column of shoeboxes in his arms; the boxes were piled up to his chin!
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I took the liberty of pulling some other shoes that I thought you and your daughter might like.”
I heard an audible groan from my husband and reached over to squeeze his hand before saying to the sales associate, “Why thank you so much. That was very thoughtful of you.”
My daughter’s eyes were as big as saucers. She eyed the sky-high pile of shoeboxes with curiosity and wonder.
After trying on three different pairs of white dress shoes and choosing a pair for Easter Sunday, it was time for my daughter to try on the espadrille sandals she had picked out for herself and to take a look at the other shoes the sales associate had deposited in our midst.
My daughter was only interested in the sunflower shoes she had chosen. She waited impatiently while the sales associate removed the right shoe from the box and placed it carefully on her foot before buckling it.
The shoe fit perfectly. The sales associate asked if I wanted my daughter to try on the left shoe as well to ensure it fit. I said, “Yes, please,” and waited for the inevitable.
My daughter was smitten. She looked up at my husband with her big brown eyes and asked, “Daddy, may I have these?” Note that she asked Daddy, not Mommy – smart girl!
After a brief hesitation and with an audible sigh, my husband answered, “Yes, you may.”
My husband, resigned to the idea that this would not be the first time he would be talked into buying a lot of pretty things for his little girl, pulled out his wallet and handed his American Express card to the sales associate,.
“So it begins,” he said. “Like mother like daughter.”
“Actually,” I happily said, “she is carrying on the family tradition. It’s more an issue of like great grandmother, grandmother, and mother like daughter.”
My husband just laughed, as did the sales associate. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time he had heard a similar statement.
The family tradition continues
My daughter got her first pair of “grown-up shoes” for her fifteenth birthday, a pair of 2.5” black patent leather Bandolino™ pumps to wear with a dress-up dress for dinner at Brennan’s, where we celebrated both her birthday and our 20th wedding anniversary (our child was born on our fifth wedding anniversary). Those shoes were considerably less expensive than my first pair of “grown-up shoes,” but then our daughter hasn’t graduated from college and entered the job market yet.
For now, my daughter primarily wears Dr. Martens™ or black canvas Converse™ that can take a beating, much like a Timex™ watch (“It takes a licking but keeps on ticking.”) or a Samsonite™ suitcase, because she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. When you’re arc welding or using buzz saws in a sculpture class or developing photographs in a dark room, you can’t wear the latest in trendy footwear – it’s just not safe or practical.
Someday my daughter may return to wearing brightly colored sandals and shoes, and I hope that she has at least one daughter for me to spoil and to continue the family tradition. Until then, I will just have to settle for buying cute shoes for myself.
Cardinals and Bill’s Shoe Box are long gone, but they have been replaced by something better: the Internet. I can shop online for shoes at any time of the day or night, the selection is seemingly endless, and – best of all – I never have to buy anything to enjoy the experience.
