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Shoes, Glorious Shoes!!
By Marie-Thérèse
M. Norris
French Touch Image Consulting LLC
www.frenchtouchimage.com
email |
At any given moment a man knows exactly
how many pairs of shoes are in his closet, usually between five
and eight. Just ask him. Now, ask a woman that question, and
she will start to hum, roll her eyes upwards as if seeking divine
inspiration, want to know if that includes boots and shoes she’s
never worn or maybe only once, and then throw up her hands and
say, “gee, I don’t know – I guess, somewhere
between 50 and 100? Maybe more?” Why do we have so many
shoes that we can’t keep track of them? Because we can’t
stop buying them, because we love them. We love wearing them;
we love trying them on; and we really love buying them. Buying
a new pair of shoes is instant gratification. You don’t
have to go into a dressing room and take off your clothes in
front of an unforgiving, full-length mirror. You just simply
slip off your shoes, slip into the new pair, walk up and down
a few times in front of a little mirror that only shows your
legs from your knees down, and you know instantly whether or
not you are perfect for each other.
The first pair of shoes I fell in love with was Moira Shearer’s
enchanted ballet slippers in the film “The Red Shoes,”
in which a ballerina literally dances herself to death in the
most gorgeous pair of red satin ballet slippers I had ever seen.
And then I saw “Cinderella,” and I, like millions
of other little girls my age, was utterly and completely smitten
– not with Prince Charming, but with those shoes. I knew
from that moment on that I would spend the rest of my life looking
for that perfect pair of shoes, those magical glass slippers
that would transform me into a princess. Who needs Prince Charming
when you can have those shoes?
Right over my desk is a picture of a little girl in a flowing
summer dress in a field of sunflowers surrounded by shoes of
every shape and color. Above her beaming, upturned face is written,
“If the shoe fits, buy it in every color.” And every
time I look at her I smile. While most men do not understand
the shoe-obsessed women in their lives, some men definitely
get it, like the hottest young shoe designer in Paris, Christian
Louboutin, with his signature red soles. Some very famous and
very royal feet, such as Catherine Deneuve and Princess Caroline
of Monaco, respectively, slip into Louboutin’s fabulous
creations. It all began for Louboutin when he fell in love with
a pair of high-heeled shoes while visiting a museum as a child.
He became so obsessed with those shoes that he drew them all
over his school books, papers and desk. Monsieur Louboutin’s
obsession with shoes is actually not an anomaly in western civilization.
In fact, the original, shoe-obsessed sex was not the feminine
sex at all.
Throughout most of the history of western civilization, shoes
were far more important to a gentleman’s attire than to
a lady’s. From the Middle Ages’ doublets and hose
through the Colonial period’s knee breeches and stockings,
a gentleman’s legs and feet were very much on display,
while a lady’s feet were barely visible under her voluminous
skirts. Even as late as the 19th Century men were still extremely
particular about their footwear. In Charles Dickens’ beloved
novel “David Copperfield” the title character dons
a pair of new boots several sizes too small to impress his lady
love with the fashionably small size of his feet.
Walt Disney adapted his screen version of Cinderella from a
tale written in 1697 by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault;
however, the original version of the story, by the Countess
of Aulnoy, who clearly knew her audience, was very different.
In that version, Cinderella does not go to the ball in a pair
of glass slippers, but in a tiny pair of red velvet, pearl-encrusted,
high-heeled mules. Try running to catch the last pumpkin out
of town in a pair of those without losing one on the way!! She
and Prince Charming never even meet at the ball, much less share
a dance. The Prince finds that perfect little shoe the next
day and falls hopelessly in love – not with the owner
of the shoe, but with the shoe itself, becoming so obsessed
with it that he stops eating, sleeps with it under his pillow
and refuses to leave his room. Realizing that this peculiar
relationship is not likely to produce any heirs to the throne,
the desperate King and Queen decide to act. In the hope that
their son will transfer his affections from the object itself
to the owner of the object, it is they who launch the kingdom-wide
search for the mysterious lady who lost the shoe. In the end,
they meet, fall in love, marry, and Cinderella presumably began
filling her closet with pairs and pairs of glorious little mules,
much to their mutual delight -- which only goes to prove that
if a girl wants to live happily ever after, she really only
needs one Prince Charming in her life, but she can never have
too many shoes.
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