Fashion-Most Particularly Shoes

Okay-if you actually know me in person you know I'm not a fashionista. Not by any stretch of anybody's imagination. I love to look at fashion; to me it's a cross between the circus and art a wearable Cirque de Soleil. Which is another place to see beautiful clothing. I love textiles. Colour, texture, design, all are appealing and interesting even if I would not wear it myself. I have my personal preferences and can easily flip through a fashion magazine and see nothing I would personally wear. Expressing yourself through what you wear is a luxury, a privilege in the way that buying art is a privilege. Many people who would aspire to the masterpieces must be content with the knockoffs and the posters.

So you may have noticed that I am now following a blog called Style Gypsy. I am more interested in style than fashion when it comes to how I cover my own body and am instinctively drawn to colourful, expressive, free-spirited sorts of clothing. It almost goes without saying that I have to make my choices as ethical, eco-conscious, vegan and inexpensive as I can. There will always be room for improvement and I'm always learning more. I will venture into buying vegan shoes on-line next year in 2010. In the meantime my solutions to the leather shoe problem have been varied. I own leather shoes and boots purchased before I was vegan. I still like them, they still fit and are in good shape. It would be wasteful to throw them out and I'm not financially prepared to start fresh on a whole vegan wardrobe of boots and shoes. I still wear these leather items although I admit to feeling somewhat uncomfortable about it. I have also purchased leather shoes second hand. I rationalized it by acknowledging that I was keeping the toxic tanned leather out of the landfill and that I still had no reliable source of good quality vegan shoes. Sometimes non-leather shoes are available at suppliers like Payless Shoes. These shoes aren't officially vegan and likely contain glues made from animals. I do own a pair of this type of shoe also. I love shoes. They are a beautiful thing, an art form and object of many womens' lust. My discomfort with leather and animal glues is certainly keeping me from spending too much money on shoes and yet, I am pleased at this test of my values.

The most beautiful shoes have ridiculous heel heights. I don't think I could walk comfortably in anything over three inches and even that would require me to practice at home for awhile. Given that my height is somewhere between 5'9 and 5'10, I would be well over 6' in the four inch heels that are seen most frequently on the pages of fashion magazines. I don't require that extra height and tend to feel awkward at that point. No sky-high bondage styled stilettos will make it into my wardrobe in this lifetime. My preferred shoe style is probably out of date-which gives me a perverse pleasure. As I said at the beginning, I love to look at fashion but am no fashionista. I wear what I like. If I had the regular opportunity to dress up ( LBD and all that stuff) I would splurge on a pair of those strappy high heels and strut my tall curvy stuff. How bold of me! However, the Christmas parties I go to tend to be casual affairs in someone's home where we all remove our shoes at the front door. I would be smart to contrive an outfit that suits bare feet. Or just boldly go barefoot and ankle-braceletted with my classic LBD.

I favour chunky shoes; they suit my height and curvy figure more than a daintier shoe would. A chunky heel of 2 1/2" and a squared or rounded toe suit me best. I like Mary-Janes, t-straps and ballet flats. I'm not sure that the flats look good on my narrow foot. I also love granny boots and cowboy boots. My current quest is to find a nice pair of vegan cowboy boots. (vegan cowboy is a nice oxymoron)

Women love shoes. Even the Goth, Indie and Emo girls I know don't wear just any old thing on their feet. What is it about shoes? I want to hear your shoe stories. What do you like, hate, want to buy next, or wish you could wear? Shoes won't lead to world peace, feed the hungry or cure AIDS. We have to work towards those things ourselves. What will be on your feet when you do that?

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