Hot, So Hot... Pink, That Is

Ordering shoes online is a very simple and satisfying process... that is, until you find out that you need your shoes in a different size, at which point the exchange becomes tedious and time-consuming.  One of my first purchases for my own feet was a pair of Pleaser Dream 420 pumps (the 420 part is important because Pleaser has a line of Dream pumps, and they're not all the same) and since I was having a hard time with a pair of size 16s, figured I'd have to go with size 17s.  That ended up being a mistake, as they were way too large, leading me to believe I really am a size 16 and I just had some bad luck with one pair.  Between waiting for the pair of shoes to be returned to the seller, the time it took to process the return and bill me for shipping for the new pair and allowing the USPS to do its thing with the new pair, at least a month had passed.  Of course, all will be forgotten if the new pair fits.

I was a little disappointed when my Pleaser Vanity T-strap pumps arrived because the attention to packaging detail was lacking.  That particular style of shoe must be an anomaly because my Dream pumps arrived as expected, wrapped in black cloth bags surrounding a larger one for storage.

Even better, the shoes fit.  They're still a little loose but I don't think a size 15 would be comfortable.  And!  They're hot pink, which is good because my other four pairs are red and black.  I'm thinking I need one or two more pairs, maybe something in a metallic?  In the meantime, I have many shoes I plan to destroy with the 4" heels on these, which are tall and sharp enough to cause lots of suffering, but likely not tall and sharp enough to be unbearable.  Stay tuned.

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.

My Collection: Classiques Pumps

I'll kick off the work week with a beautiful example of office pumps.  If you're like me and looking to add trashed and abused shoes to your collection, you often can't go wrong with office pumps.  You'll have to make some sacrifices- they're usually fairly plain and the heels aren't insanely high, but they're usually a hell of a lot more worn out than fancy pumps that were slipped on for the occasional date, fancy dinner or formal event.  That's because office pumps are sometimes worn on a daily basis over a period of years, racking up miles over the course of countless long days.  Some pumps are visited by the feet.  Office pumps are often lived in, such as these.

This is a pair of 7M Classiques.  Despite the French-sounding name, the logo tag on the insole proudly states these are a product of Italy.  As is the case with other pumps in my collection, the height of the heel isn't really low or high, but for the sake of simplifying things I'll list these as high heels.  Some of these photos were taken with the flash on my camera turned on and that gives them a white-ish appearance but they're actually bone.  I'm sure that made them go well with pretty much everything in the wearer's closet.

The leather uppers (yes, this time I know it's real leather because everything is leather, even the outsoles) are very wrinkled and misshapen, particularly around the areas where the shoes flex.  I'm willing to bet a lot of those wear-related defects disappear when there are two feet inside of them, and I'm thinking these will be one of those pairs I make sure get on my friend's feet for a photo session in the not-too-distant future.

A closer inspection of the leather upper reveals a mess of little cracks, which is usually a sign of aging.  I have no idea how old these shoes are but I wouldn't be shocked if they've been around fifteen or twenty years.  They don't look like anything that's been sold since at least the start of the new millennium, although a reader of this blog much more in tune with fashion trends would be better equipped to prove me right or wrong.

The pumps stink... which, of course, is a wonderful thing.  They're a few feet from me as I type this and their delicious aroma is making their presence known.  In fact, they smell a lot like the shoes I used to buy from the thrift store, so I'm wondering if the seller duped me into thinking these were her pumps, or if that smell is common to older shoes.  I guess it doesn't matter because with this kind of trashing and abuse, I'm happy to have them in my collection.  Here you can see the color having been rubbed off the lining in some spots as well as a great amount of wear having been inflicted on the insole, which is beginning to work its way loose.

It's fun to think about what a pair of shoes goes through over the course of time, starting out life being stored in a box so as not to risk them getting damaged to ending up as a disposable item.  At what point does the wearer go from avoiding puddles to walking right through them?  Gently removing them from her feet at the end of the day to kicking them off into a corner upon walking in the door?

The wearer of these pumps kept them on from the moment she left in the morning until the time she got home.  The back of the right shoe is seriously scuffed, meaning it came in contact with the floor mat in the car as she drove to and from the office.  This area on the back of the left shoe is perfectly intact.

I love the way leather outsoles wear over time.  The material seems to fray a bit, making it a little soft and fuzzy.  Leather outsoles also seem to stain very easily, leading them to appear a lot more worn than they actually are.  These are just starting to feel a little thin in the areas under the balls of the feet, but are still in great shape.

The top pieces are worn very evenly, indicating the wearer of these shoes knew how to walk in them.

Only upon looking at them from the sides is it obvious how long these shoes had been in someone's service, as the top pieces likely started out about twice as thick as they are now.  Regardless, these pumps were worn hard as one of someone's "go to"pairs but held up well in the face of everything thrown at them.  I'll be on the lookout for more just like these.

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...

My Collection: Nine West High-Heeled Pumps

In the world of shoes, I'm only vaguely familiar with what's universally respected.  I'm sure every woman wants a pair of Christian Louboutins to join her Manolo Blahniks in the closet, and it seems there's an appreciation for most anything with the Steve Madden name.  Nine West?  I'm not so sure, but on a personal level, I have a soft spot in my heart for them.  Maybe it goes back to when I was younger and spent a lot of time in my mother's closet?  One of my favorite pairs of her pumps was made by Nine West and I always found myself going back to them.  When I was out of high school and building my first collection of trashed and abused shoes by way of the local Salvation Army thrift store, I picked up a few pairs of Nine West pumps.  They were all of the same design with the sides of the heels featuring a ever-so-slight concave scallop that gave the back of them two character lines in the form of nicely-defined creases.  The look was nothing overly dramatic, just very stylish and elegant.  This was about fifteen years ago and I imagine the shoes were about ten years old at the time, but I believe that if they were sold today, the design would look very modern and work well with just about anything.

I suppose my love of Nine West shoes brought me to these.  There's nothing very trashed or abused about them- they're worn and used but could easily be put into service by a woman looking for a pair of pumps for a formal event, night of partying or even day at the office.  The topline is low, exposing a good portion of the foot, while the pointed toe box is stylish but isn't very severe. 

The heels are probably what would be described as of a medium height, although for the sake of categorization on this blog I'll refer to them as high heels.  They taper to become very thin at the bottom, which is a look that always appeals to me.  The right shoe is leaning to the side just a bit- partially because of the somewhat uneven tile surface of my dining room table that makes for an easy place to photograph shoes with heels, and partially because the top piece is completely gone, as you'll see in a minute.

The black leather uppers are practically perfect.  There are a few scratches here and there but overall it's soft and pliable, with nice creases from lots of wear.  Nine West always seemed to use good leather for their shoes.  Then again, I'm no expert and am probably making uneducated assumptions based on my limited experiences with their products, which I admittedly don't wear (but, oh, how I dream I could).

 

I wish I could have seen these pumps in action.  They're a size 8M, which makes them almost perfect candidates to end up on the feet of a friend of mine who will be helping me with contributions to this blog in the future.  I have to decide how much I love these shoes- do I want them to survive, or do I want them to suffer?  I'm trying to come up with ways to bribe her into walking through the woods or even a gravel parking lot in these... you know, just in case I decide to pull the trigger on extreme abuse.

 

Inside, there's not much to see.  The silver linings are in great shape and still have a decent amount of cushioning beneath them.  I'm willing to bet it was a pleasure for the wearer to slide her feet into these over and over again.  I know I'd be doing that, keeping myself entertained for hours upon hours if they fit my feet.

 

The only visible signs of wear are in the quarters where the cloth-like material is starting to separate where it is joined together behind the heels of the feet.  Still, it's minimal, and has no effect on the integrity of the pumps.  To quote a popular line from eBay descriptions of trashed and abused shoes, these really do have a lot of life left in them.

 

The outsoles have shallow ridges stamped into the rubber to provide a modicum of grip on slippery surfaces and are intact for the most part, with wear being limited to the areas subjected to the weight of the wearer.  Even then, the ridges have been worn smooth but the outsoles have not lost any of their thickness.

 

  

The tips of the pointed toes are looking a little rough, as to be expected of pumps with pointed toe boxes.  It's probably quite challenging to keep them from coming in contact with everything and makes sense that they'd be among the parts of the shoes exhibiting the most wear.

However, nothing compared to the top pieces, which are worn to the nail on the left shoe and completely gone on the right, exposing the nail and the plastic structure of the heel itself.  I always wonder if the wearer knows when a top piece is missing?  I remember my wife having a pair of sandals that had a huge crack spanning the width of the outsole, yet she never knew it because she never looked at the bottoms of her shoes.  Is it possible these shoes were worn for weeks or months with the top piece missing, and only when the wearer noticed were they finally retired?  How wonderful it would be to get inside a woman's head!  I've had some interesting conversations in the past but they've just scratched the surface of my curiosity.

Another Pair For My Feet To Embrace

Another day, and another pair of Pleasers arrives for the pleasure of my feet.  This time it's a pair of Vanity T-strap pumps.

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the thrill of opening a box like this.  I used to wonder why women would buy more shoes than they'd ever have the ability to wear but now I'm starting to get it.  This is my fourth pair of shoes (with one more on the way- a pair of size 16 pumps to replace the 17's that were too big) and while I now have more pairs of shoes than I'll be able to enjoy as much as I'd like, I'm getting the itch to buy another pair or two, and maybe even boots if I can be assured that they'll work with my calves.

There's certainly no real reason for me to be disappointed but I'm just a little dismayed by the fact that Pleaser has made a bit of a liar out of me.  Not long after I sang the praises of Pleaser's packaging, I open the box to find no black protective storage bag to house my shoes.  These shoes also came wrapped in white cloth bags that weren't as substantial as the black cloth bags that contained the other Pleasers I purchased, so I'm assuming it wasn't a simple oversight and is just a case of Pleaser not providing the protective storage bags with all their shoes?

Regardless, the shoes are awesome.  They're red patent (don't be fooled by the bad lighting of the photos- they're not pink, although the pumps that are due to arrive are a flashy hot pink, just to switch things up a bit) and the 4" heel should make them a bit easier to deal with than my slingbacks with the 5" heel that feels just a tad delicate, although I'll be the first to admit I need to get used to them.

At first I was worried because I had a hard time squeezing my feet between the straps, but then figured it was more about the angle of approach than anything else.  Still, I give straps a lot of credit.  I stretched these in ways that made me sure I'd snap them apart, and that was once... and with the shoes in brand new condition.  How do the straps do it when they're old and having been stretched to their limits (and likely beyond) hundreds of times?

I look forward to seeing how these straps do it.

A Mom Wears Heels To the Playground

My continued internet search for hidden gems uncovered this CafeMom post by a mother who wore her heels to the playground.  I'm undecided on what I find more entertaining- the story of how the mom tackled the obstacles of the playground in a pair of heels, or the comments ranging from, "who cares?" to a woman that nastily feels, "This may be the stupidest article I've read on here... Our society is seriously f***ed up when a woman feels she HAS to wear feet-damaging shoes to feel special. I feel all kinds of special in my Walmart flip flops, because I know my worth isn't measured in how much pain my feet are in."  I wouldn't be shocked if those Walmart flip flops are actually a pair of Crocs.

The mom's, "I'll do what I want, when I want and how I want" attitude is inspiring, even if the whole thing reeks of a little self-promotion (after all, there was someone clearly asked to be present with a camera to photograph the whole show.)

My Collection: Willi Smith High-Heeled Pumps

As my current collection continues to build in two plastic storage bins in the trunk of my car, I'll take in-depth looks at the shoes I accumulate.  These size 9M pumps by Willi Smith (I'm assuming the fading black lettering in the heel area of the shoes indicates the name of the style is Eclipse) definitely aren't the most trashed and abused I've come across, but they do a good job of illustrating the kind of footwear that holds my interest.

First, they're very feminine.  The heels aren't ridiculously high but they're thin, which I appreciate infinitely more than heels that are thick and chunky.  There are cute little cloth bows above the toe boxes that serve as simple ornamentation, and the uppers are a nice combination of black leather with black patent leather around the toplines.

Inside, there isn't much wear to speak of.  While the seller advertised these to the fetish crowd, the truth is that with just a little work, these shoes could be used on a daily basis, especially in an office environment that might be a little rough on pumps, like one where frequent trips to the warehouse are necessary throughout the day.  Still, there are enough visible signs of wear for them to appeal to me, and it's clearly from regular use over the course of time.  These are old shoes and their appearance is what you'd expect of old shoes.

The quarters and seat betray the age of the pumps and are more dirty than worn down.  I've never heard of the brand Willi Smith.  They were advertised on eBay as "Will Smith" shoes, which I knew didn't sound right... not that Willi Smith sounds any more right, I guess.

Some of the threading that holds the patent leather strips to the leather uppers around the toplines is starting to fray.  The fact that the thread is white against black patent leather makes everything look worse from afar than it actually is, and with some careful work with scissors the shoes could be made to look just a bit more presentable.

The worst wear is on the inner sides of the uppers along the toplines where the patent leather is cracking at the points where the shoes flex.  Even then, it's just the patent leather that's affixed to the leather uppers displaying the wear and not complete tears affecting the integrity of the shoes, as is common on old pumps that have survived years of frequent use.

If I were to guess (and I will), these were office shoes that weren't protected from some of the rougher parts of the work day.  The back of the right shoe has moderate scuffing, likely from where it came in contact with a floor mat in a car.  The wearer of these shoes didn't put them in her purse as she slipped into sneakers to get to and from work.  They were likely on her feet from the time she left the house until the time she got home.  I admire women that do that.

There's not much to see when they're turned upside down.  Aside from the maroon material having been worn away in the typical spots and exposing black rubber beneath it, the outsoles are still nice and thick.  Continuing with the assumption that these were offices shoes, they probably accumulated most of their miles indoors on carpeted floors, with treks to and from the car being the most abusive parts of their days.

Despite the overall decent condition of the pumps, the top pieces are showing serious signs of wear.  The one on the right shoe is just about worn down to the nail.  Perhaps the owner of these pumps decided that it was time for them to be retired as opposed to having the top pieces replaced with new ones?  I can imagine that being the point where a lot of women decide to retire their heels.

While it usually appears that the right shoe in a pair takes on a bit more trashing and abuse (maybe because a lot of people are right-handed? or the right foot is the one that operates the accelerator and brake in the car?), this particular pair has a left shoe that's more worn than the other.  The cracks in the patent leather accents around the topline can be best appreciated when the pump is in the flexed position.

The only sign of serious wear anywhere inside either shoe is on the lining where the pinky toe rubbed against it in the left one.  A hole in the soft leather lining is starting to appear, exposing a very small part of the inside of the leather upper.  It's almost impossible to feel from the outside, so the toe wasn't at risk of tearing through.

Even though the left shoe is the more worn of the two, the heel area is in much better condition than that of the right one, giving further support to my theory that these weren't taken off for the daily drive to the office.  A little work with a black Sharpie could make this scuffing just about disappear in a few seconds.

The left shoe's top piece is in much worse condition, with the nail almost completely exposed.  Still, there is enough plastic still surrounding it to prevent it from making a harsh noise on hard surfaces, and maybe even damage to wood floors.  The wearer must have known exactly when to stop wearing these, as it seems a few more days of use would have exposed enough of the nail to make them troublesome.

The most fascinating thing about these pumps is the way the top pieces are worn down at a severe angle, indicating the wearer walked on the outside edges of her feet.  I've seen it plenty of times and it never fails to get my attention.  I'm amazed by how a lot of heels don't break off as a result of this.  Simple physics dictates that the weight of the body travels straight down to the ground through the center of the heel, yet with the heel at an angle no longer perpendicular to the ground, it's no longer transmitting those forces as designed.  In theory, shouldn't the heel break sideways, slipping out from underneath the shoe as the foot of the wearer slides the other way?

My favorite way to view pumps with top pieces worn in such a way- from behind, admiring them as they lean slightly to the sides.  And there you have it, the first of many shoes that I'll be featuring over the life of this blog.  Your thoughts?  I'm always interested to hear them.