Even though I'm not buying anything at the moment, I bought something. The ubiquitous peep toe ankle boot (which looks like it's not going away) finally sucked me into its evil toe soaking (that's soaking in the rain, not toe sucking) orbit. What I wanted was: A pair of inexpensive black or grey peep toe ankle boots, with laces or without, with a cone heel of no more than two inches, preferably less, to wear with skirts and dresses. And tights/socks of course.
I knew I could find some cheap high streety ones so off I went.
The problem is, they're all so high - or rather, more accurately, "They're soooo hiiiiggghh," in a whiny voice. Like these from Topshop:
Even a well practised transvestite would have trouble maneuvering in these. Actually this picture makes them look less scary than they are in real life. For proportion's sake, they need a fairly high heel to balance them, and I don't do high heels since I broke my foot last year. Also, these would make me about 6"3.
So - onto some gorgeous grey suede All Saints peep toe lace ups with a sort of little heel on top of a wedge heel. Oh, they were so beautiful but they're not on the website yet. They didn't look that high but when I stood up in them I knew they'd stay in the wardrobe with the rest of my heels. I needed daytime clomping around shoes. I've done oxfords, I've done slightly heeled oxfords; I didn't want to get those
flat pull on ankle boots everyone's got - again from TS. I had started thinking about desert boots but came to the conclusion that I might look like a middle aged geography teacher (not that there's anything wrong with that). So I just wanted some flat ankle boots that weren't what everyone else was wearing.
Then I stumbled upon these funny boots.
I was so not sure, since there's something possibly Riverdance about them. They're sort of dorky but the thing I like is that, well, I like them. But I haven't seen one other person in London wearing anything like them. Reception has ranged from, "They remind me of the boots women wore in the wild west, you know with those petticoats" to, "When are you putting the calipers back on?"
I'm getting too old to confidently go forth with the "you'll all be wearing them in six months so I don't care" attitude and I wasn't aware of being inspired by anything until I remembered seeing
these - and
these.
Of course, the internet. I do find it strange that there's me - on the internet all the time, clicking away being inspired by what I see, rather than the old fashioned way of being inspired by people on the street, which limits you to the place where you live. It does lead to you getting sort of out of sync - there are so many little internet fads: fuelled by etsy shop updates that vanish within half a second, by something going round all the blogs - but those don't generally happen at the same time as they hit the general mass. Actually I keep seeing things in High Street shops that are heavily *inspired* by things I'd seen in various good etsy shops a few months before; so their designers must be online just as much as I am. It's good and bad I suppose - everyone in London thinks my (now rolled away as I'm bored of it)
For Like Ever poster is really original.
