So it occurs to me that if my style is only 20ish% classic and the remaining 75 to 80% is a combination of ingenue and gamine, that is, playful, both on the girl side and on the boy side, that is going to impact my everyday shoes. I don’t need heels.
Which actually explains a lot. Last weekend, my sister was here and we all took a big family walk; she wore one of those euro-type shoes that are basically a heeled clog. I never wear backless anything (except on my way to the shower at the gym). Naturally, I wore my Chacos.
The youthful connection also explains my preference for “barefoot” looks. Matching your legs, especially with a shoe that is a light style, results in the shoes sort of disappearing; it always surprizes me when people don’t like that look. For sure it makes your legs look longer. But some people are uncomfortable with looking shoeless. I suspect they are less immature. 😉
As I design my wardrobe for this summer, I can see that all my shoes, with the exception of the business category, should be flat and blend with the leg. All I still need is a pair of dressier sandals.
If we each understood our style essence blend, perhaps we could honestly get by with fewer shoes. Here’s brainstorming style essences and summer shoe styles:
- Dramatic: prob’ly the gal who always wears heels
- Gamine: flat loafers and boat shoes?
- Natural: flip-flops
- Classic: Keds, metallic Borns
- Romantic: ballet flats
- Ingenue: sparkly Thoms
- Ethereal: sandals with super-thin straps
Off the top of my head. What are your thoughts?
I’m going to read and think on your suggested list over my coffee but had to comment on the barefoot look.
You’ve completely changed my mind about nude shoes. I’m one who shied away because I thought it was weird that people wanted to look barefoot at a distance. But that aesthetic actually serves my dash and go style that is my version of effortless chic. Hah! So much in forward motion she forgot her shoes!
Someone on YLF forum commented that her shoes seemed fine until she needed to take them on the concrete sidewalks. This has been my exact experience lately. Shoes might be good and stable indoors, up and down stairs carrying things, cruising around the supermarket but striding up street on the cement, suddenly they feel treacherously wobbly and I’m not talking about any kind of spindly heeled stilettos. More than anything, I need stability first. I have my version of the pool slides, which I won’t wear, which is a comfort shoe with low formed sole and an assortment of straps that lets me hold it on securely around the ankle but doesn’t pinch in around the toe area. Or so I thought until I twisted my ankle (not seriously at all) and my foot went sideways in them. Who wants to fall off comfort shoes!
That is exactly what has happened with the yoga mat shoes: I love them for everything, except they are apparently not for hurrying in. And, for whatever reason, I need to be entirely in control of all my movement; i.e. not holding on to anybody else. 😉
I don’t think Dramatic has to wear heels. She was probably the gal who wore bare flat sandals with all the leather encasing her ankles long before they were mainstream. Dramatic has a lot of what-the-what about her items.
I’ve given up on D’orsay cut as they won’t stay on my feet plus the sides of my feet are not so fetching. Reason why I’ve learned to stay away from the thin strappy look. Too much the contrast with my sturdy looking feet. Most uglifying. The shoes, me. Me, the shoes.
For years, I wore Airwalk formed flip flops as necessary errand running shoes but I disciplined myself to give them up. My favorite sandals are a black with silver Jack Rogers knockoff but won’t stay on my feet.
I discovered loafers extremely late in life and use them as a fall back shoe if everything else unexpectedly hurts but hardly anyone in my region understand them. Boat shoes, I wore determinedly in my 20’s and 30’s until I finally realized that I couldn’t do mind over matter on them anymore and pretend away the hurt over the instep. I also need some degree of cushioning between me and sidewalk. Not wedges – I fall off 😀 plus they are inflexible and I feel like Frankenstein’s monster clomping my shoes down that way. My greatest success has been ankle boots – boots of every kind seem to solve all my problems, except I don’t like them tall. I’ve worn ankle boots throughout a summer. But the problem is that I’ve done that and like some variety. I try to persuade myself that the ladies of yesteryear wore boots year round because that’s what shoes were. No Vans for me, I can’t stand the look on myself, makes me feel as though I just finished mopping up a flooded basement.
These have worked for me for a coupla years, even though they aren’t flexible. Mine are just like this, pair in black with tan stitching and pair in med brown with tan stitching – simple band cross toes with little contrast stitched X’s. Same brand and style except mine has just the one band and seem more retro ladylike to me. That’s a big part of what I like – the retro ladylike look, though heaven knows what style category that fits into.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/181397034041?lpid=82
I agree about Dramatic wearing the full-height gladiator sandals and so on. But looking at it front the other way around: the woman who always wears heels prob’ly has a healthy percentage of dramatic in her idiom.
Oh! Oh! I think I know. From the Andrea Pflaumer:
“Ladylike or demure: Classic/Traditional, often featured on an hourglass figure; simple silhouettes, defined waistlines, skin more covered than revealed, often some vintage elements — a throwback to ’50s or ’60s fashion, sometimes minimalist structures in garments and accessories.”
Although, I’m with you in thinking there is likely a romantic bit to it as well. 🙂
Maybe Romantic? Not the ruffles and all that but maybe the woman glimpsed in the distance in a foreign city and you can’t catch up with her for all the flights of steps and canal bridges between you. 😀 Post war Italian feminine? Clothes from the forties but she still has them because they still work.