Lou's Girlfriend's Shoes: Part One (Hello, Red Flats)

Since coming over from Europe, Lou's girlfriend's shoes have been a bit neglected.  As soon as the weather improves, they'll be taking a difficult hike in the woods courtesy of a friend of mine with a voracious desire to be very abusive to the shoes on her feet.  In the meantime, I thought I'd send the red flats a greeting with my Pleaser T-strap pumps.

As promised, the information found here will give you a little insight as to what's going on.  I didn't measure the heels of my Pleasers but the top pieces are very small, somewhere between 3/16" and 1/4" of an inch.  There are times in the video when I am putting nearly all of my 300 pounds onto the heels of my shoes, meaning the pressure being generated is somewhere in the 10,000 PSI range without any motion whatsoever.  That means the number is going to swell as I lift my foot off the floor and stomp back down on it.  What abuse Lou's girlfriend's shoes are being forced to endure!  Good thing they held up with only a few scratches, although the road only gets more difficult from now on... figuratively and literally.

Connie Celebrates No More: Part One

 

It's been a generally unsatisfying week as far as this hobby goes, as I've barely had any alone time to enjoy my collection.  It was also a slow week when it comes to additions to my collection, highlighted only by the arrival of two pairs of pumps.  One pair was purchased because the trashing and abuse I could see in the photos led me to believe it would make a fine addition to my collection and the other was purchased because it looked as though it would make for a nice target for destruction.  Note to sellers: combining shipping costs for multiple purchases leads to, um, more purchases.

The high-heeled pumps pictured here are the ones purchased so I could end their shiny little lives.  They are made by Connie and are apparently part of the company's "Celebrates"line of shoes.  I'm not sure where that causes them to fall in the Connie universe, all I know is that it's quite cumbersome as it rolls off the tongue.  Wouldn't Connie Celebrations make more sense than Connie Celebrates?  Celebrates what?  The destruction of her shoes?  Okay, I'm down with that.

Once again, I enlisted the help of my Pleaser Mary Janes.  Of all the shoes in my collection that were purchased for the enjoyment of my feet, they're the ones with the sturdiest heels.  Maybe one day I'll get destructive with the shoes with the higher heels but right now I'm sticking with what I'm most confident wearing.  Size 8 Connies, meet size 16 Pleasers.  Poor adorable things.

When I destroyed my Moda sandals, my favorite moment was when I put all of my weight on the heels of my shoes and used them to collapse the shanks of their victims.  Since then, I've purchased a few pairs of shoes with lower heels, hoping to be able to recreate that moment.  The Connies taught me that I have to keep things modest.  In this photo it appears that the heel of my Pleaser is going to bend the silver pump in half but I discovered that there is no way to stabilize a pump so that it remains upright under the weight of a heel.  After this photo was taken, the little Connie fell to either side as the heel dragged along the foam-padded insole but failed to cause any structural damage.  From now on I need shoes with low, blocky heels because at least they remain stable and upright as I stand on them.

Since the insole was already working its way loose long before I bought the pumps, I tried peeling it back so that the top piece of my Pleaser's heel wouldn't be subjected to such a slippery surface.  The end result was ultimately the same since the sharp curvature of the shank was too much and the heel still slid down, unable to remain in one spot long enough to break the shoe.  Frustrated by my lack of destructive success, I threw the Connie down on the cold, hard garage floor and stomped, kicked and dragged the life out of it.

Did I go too far?  I'm thinking it's a possibility as I'm starting to get concerned about the long-term health and well-being of my Pleasers.  The heels absorbed a massive amount of abuse with serious damage to the top pieces and even the leather covering them.  As I walked back in the house, my Mary Janes felt a little wobbly and sloppy.  An inspection revealed the heels still very tightly attached, so is it my imagination or are is the abuse only evident when my 300 pound body is walking in them?  Time will tell.

As for the Connies... well, I concentrated all of my anger on the right shoe.  The left one is completely intact right now and surely happy it's not looking like this one.  The stomping by the Pleasers resulted in the bending of the metal strip that forms the shape of the shank, which in turn has the heel bent under the shoe.

Part of the reason one of my Pleaser's top pieces is in such dismal shape is because I dragged the Connie along the course concrete floor of the garage.  This created deep scratches on the rubber outsole as well as a hole in the upper.

The stress inflicted on the shoe during the dragging session caused the upper to tear away from the outsole.  Whatever was left of the already-worn top piece shattered into many pieces, exposing the metal nail in the center of the heel that proved to be the only part of the shoe to survive the rampage completely intact.  The flash I used for this photo blacked out the background, allowing a good look at the part of the pump that suffered the most damage.

With the insole peeled back, the shoe's new holes can be seen along with the cracking of the shank near the base of the heel.  This particular pair of pumps doesn't appear to have been all that expensive, although I suppose all pumps are made this way?  (I'll have to tear apart a few more to be certain.)  The shank is made of an extremely rigid compressed paper-like material, which I assume is sufficient because of the metal strip between it and the outsole, and the heel is attached with a couple of nails.

One down, one to go.  It won't be long before I take on the self-imposed challenge of making the left shoe look worse than the right.  To be continued...

Destroying the Gold Ballet Flats: Part One

I try to make educated eBay purchases but every once in a while emotion (or something else that I can't explain) grabs hold of me.  In this case, it was these ballet flats reminding me of the ones pretty much all women (and girls) seemed to wear in the early 90's.  My mother had a pair, as did her friend... and my best friend at the time... and her sister... usually white, all with a cute little bow above the toe box.  I saw these and was immediately captivated.

As you can see, there's not much about them that's trashed or abused.  In fact, the outsoles of the shoes look practically new.  Something tells me these shoes spent the majority of their life indoors, confined to carpeted areas and other surfaces that didn't inflict much damage at all.

The most significant sign of use is inside the shoes where sole is completely gone.  Maybe the woman that wore these shoes had sweaty feet and the moisture worked them loose.  Maybe she got rid of them, just because...?  Either way, the thin layer of foam meant to provide some cushioning is a little dark and dirty in some areas, so whatever the case, the shoes spent some time being worn with the soles MIA.

With a house to myself and wanting an opportunity to do something with my new Pleaser Mary Jane pumps, I figured that I would make up for the fact that I allowed myself to buy a pair of shoes that really wasn't anything special aside from the fact that it took me back about two decades for a brief moment.  Yes, that's my lovely feet inside my red patent leather beauties.  I love how my gigantic Pleasers look eager for their chance to rip the flats apart.

I started slowly by stepping on the sweet-looking bows with the heels of my shoes.  Since there's not usually much in the way of structure in ballet flats, I could barely feel anything as I put my weight on them.  They seemed to compress into something no thicker than a piece of paper.  Not at all satisfying.

Next, I stepped on the backs of the shoes.  Again, the sensation was mediocre at best because of the lack of a stiff counter in the quarter.  When I destroyed the Moda sandals, they put up a bit of a fight.  Ballet flats don't resist much of anything, they just sort of go with the flow.  I suppose that could be why they're so popular, and women tend to keep them until they fall apart.  I have a few good examples I'll be showing you over the next week or two.

Somewhat disappointed, I took the flats to the garage where I figured I could do some serious damage.  And damage the shoes, I did.  This is what they looked like after the Pleasers were unleashed on them.

Remember the scene from the end of Jurassic Park where the pair of velociraptors team up to frighten the hell out of Hammond's niece and nephew?  I've learned that a pair of heels can create an equally effective team.  By using the heel of one shoe to hold the victim in place, the other can kick the life out of it without it moving all that much.  It's all about finding a way to maintain a good amount of weight on the heel of the shoe that's holding the victim in place while being nimble enough to inflict damage with the other.

The heel marks on the foam padding were nice to see but what I loved more was how they hooked themselves onto the bow as I kicked away, eventually ripping the fake leather material enough to leave them looking injured but not anywhere close to death.

The absolute best result of the fury was the hole I made in the back of one of the shoes as I held it down with the heel of one of my Mary Janes.  The top piece of the heel eventually cut through the thin layer of material, further trapping the poor ballet flat underneath it and preventing it from being able to escape.  Talk about a torture device!

I found that kicking ballet flats positioned on a concrete garage floor means you'll miss about twice as much as you hit the target, or at least until you get a feel for what you're doing.  The top pieces on both heels took some abuse, but the heels themselves seem as sturdy as ever.

Still, the moment left both of my Pleasers with some unintended damage, like this black mark that doesn't seem ready to go away anytime soon.  Part of me feels bad, and now I can reason with women that get distressed when they do something to hurt their brand new pair of shoes.  Yet another part of me knows this is the life I intended for these shoes, and the damage that accumulates over time will be worth the results.  Speaking of results, the gold ballet flats are getting put away, but their trashing and abuse is far from over.  Stay tuned.

Destroying the Moda Sandals

After an unusually stressful morning at work, I retreated to an empty house where I knew I had to unleash some fury upon something.  I put on my Ellie slingbacks to figure things out andthen it hit me.

A little back story... before I got the idea to purchase shoes that actually feet my gigantic feet, I tried to make do with the largest worn shoes I could find on eBay.  Every once in a while I'd come across some kind of sandal in a size 12 or 13 and if it had a bare minimum of straps or some straps that could be cut without ruining their ability to remain in place on my feet, I'd buy them and use them every so often for as long as I could withstand the circulation in my feet being compromised.  I found this pair of size 13M lime green strappy sandals by Moda and, despite them not being large enough for my feet, had high hopes that I could make them work.

You'll have to forgive me for not having photographed them as soon as they arrived, but when I found that the thin straps really hurt me feet, I figured I would end up getting rid of them.  They were very lightly used, with only the top pieces of the low, blocky heels showing the slightest bit of wear.  There was definitely no trashing and abuse to be enjoyed, so as I contemplated how to get rid of some of my aggression, I came to the conclusion that I'd give my Ellies a workout and see what they could do to the Moda sandals, since they had no future with me.

I stepped on them a few times but that didn't do much.  I figured I would only be satisfied if I was able to do something to ruin the integrity of the sandals so I centered the heel of my Ellie above the shank of the right shoe, stabilized myself by holding onto the wall and let all 300 pounds of my weight bear down on it.  The feeling of the shank slowly giving out was so amazing, I couldn't wait to do it to the other one, and now I'm seriously considering an eBay search for some more low-heeled sandals and heels so I can enjoy that sensation again.  It was an unexpected feeling of power.  At this point I got the idea to photograph the results of the trashing and abuse, so the first two photos are of the first round.

I needed a location better than my dining room floor to continue things so I took the sandals to the garage and went crazy, stomping the living hell out of the left sandal.  The adorable jewelry-like metal heart that connected the three spaghetti straps ended up shattering, rendering the poor thing useless.  The top pieces of my Ellies left their mark all over the shoes as I paid special attention to the area where I collapsed the shank.

The bending of the shank was so severe that the top piece went flying across the garage, sending me on a search to find it so my wife wouldn't come across it at some point.  I almost regretted the metal heart breaking because I would have loved to have slipped this on my foot one last time to see what it would be like to walk in the shoes with them in this condition.

The right sandal also took some harsh blows including a nasty one that speared through the metallic material of the insole, but at this point my feet were getting tired and as much as want to abuse my Ellie slingbacks over time, don't want to completely destroy them.  It was a good thing that a close inspection of them showed nothing more than top pieces looking a little worn from having murdered the Modas.  Something tells me my Ellies can take on anything, and perhaps they will in the future.