photo credit: x-ray delta one
photo credit: x-ray delta one
USED TO LOVE all the new shoes coming out each season. I'd head to the shoe department and walk slowly past the displays like a queen reviewing her troops. Then one day a terrible thing happened: Some shoes showed up ugly! Try repeating that a few times after Happy Hour, I dare you.
No, ugly shoes are not Leprosy or Adult Acne. But they are really, really ugly! What have I done to deserve the curled-up toe? Or the heel that looks like the on-ramp to an Interstate?? If I walk, do my naturally shapely ankles not require an attractive heel? If I dance, do my remarkably youthful legs not benefit from a shoe that lengthens and is not all stubby??
Clearly the ugly-shoe trend is the product of a sick cabal of fashionistas. Why, I can just imagine their conversation on the night the first ugly shoes were devised . . .
Snotty Manhattan loft, 3:00 a.m., circa 2000.
Michael Kors: Hi guys! There's dirt at the clubs that you're about to design the UG-liest shoes ever inflicted! As New York's top fashion designer, I just couldn't resist. And I've brought with me the beautiful and FAB-ulous Heidi Klum!
Heidi Klum: Hello Everyone! As you know, in fashion, one day you are in, and the next—
Michael Kors: Oh shut up, you gorgeous bitch. Why does she say that every time she walks into a room?
Italian Shoe Guy: Because she is Woman, and Woman are a Puzzle.
Heidi Klum: HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
Michael Kors: Hey, guy, you're Italian. Why aren't you speaking with a thicker accent?
Italian Shoe Guy: You have to use your imagination, Michael Kors.
Michael Kors: Well, you could at least try.
Italian Shoe Guy: Ok. Eef you only knooo 'ow much I want to keees you Leez dahling. How's that?
Liz Claiborne: That's pretty bad. I'll just use my imagination. Listen, I'm only here to put in my two cents for normal shoes. I like normal shoes.
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: And that opinion is worth about two cents. By the way, I'm speaking in a difficult-to-place, pan-European accent.
Italian Shoe Guy: I'm with Liz. Except my normal shoes are much pointier and out-of-the-piazza expensive.
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: You two need to go bye-bye.
Heidi Klum: Out! You are OUT!! It is so very GREAT to say that! If only someone would create a proper venue into which I could say that on a repeated basis!
Michael Kors: Ok, but we're down to one shoe girrl. Heidi, quick, pull a drug addict off the street so we can get some organic input!
Heidi Klum: I have already thought of that, Michael Kors! Here is Joey, who tells me he is extremely high on various strasse drugs. Congratulations, Joey! You will have 10 minutes and one whiskey to help design a shoe. As you know, in fashion, one day—
Michael Kors: Sew a snap on it, honey! Who's going to start? PSG, let's brainstorm, sweetie!!
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: Crevices. Crevices everywhere. I don't want to see a shoe so much as a series of fault lines orchestrated by the malevolence of the foot!
Michael Kors: Oh, fabulous! Joey, honey, you're up.
Joey: I can't stop scratching myself. I need pesticide NOW!!
Michael Kors: FAB-ulous! He's scratching the crevices. Who wouldn't?!
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: Yes, YES! And the heel has rotted off and now we have a flat, a cracked and hideous flat that has been marinating in a swamp. Joey, you are more inspirational than Death!!
Joey: I think I've gotten most of them.
Michael Kors: How long do we leave it in the swamp?
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: What a hyper-rationalist question, Michael Kors! Joey, tell him how long to leave it in the swamp.
Joey: Three days and nights, if you want to be absolutely certain you've killed every last one. Heidi, could I get another whiskey, please Heidi?
Heidi Klum: You may have another whiskey when you kiss my beautiful kneecaps!
Joey: Oh, God.
Michael Kors: The fashion train is leaving without you, Joey! Shoe girrl, hit me!
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: Now I see trains, forms of transport. Highways and byways.
Michael Kors: You take the high road and I'll take the low road!!
Heidi Klum: Kiss my kneecaps again, Joey! Then you may leave the runway.
Michael Kors: "Runway." Why does she keep saying that?
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: Runways! There is only one way for our roads to meet, and that is through engineering, Michael Kors! Joey!! How do the roads meet??
Joey: Intersections?
Michael Kors: Joey, I just have to ask: WHAT were you THINK-ing. I mean, PLEASE—it's like getting NY-quil poured down my throat with a FUN-nel! Somebody pull me out of a CO-ma!!
Heidi: You have disappointed us, Joey. We asked for more and all you gave us was more of the same. Joey, you are out.
Joey: Thank you, oh thank you!!
Michael Kors: Now can we get back to work of actual designers, please? Shoe girrl, where were we?
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: Road construction.
Heidi Klum: When are they going to fix that ramp on the West Side Highway?
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl/Michael Kors: OH MY GOD!!
Michael Kors: A ramp for the heel! I'm peeing in my pants!!
Prada-esque Shoe Girrrl: You are disgusting, but I can understand your rapturous expulsions.
Heidi Klum: Congratulations to you both! You have shown us something new in fashion. When Michael Kors has stopped peeing in his pants, let's go out for a drink to celebrate! We can take my 2001 Saturn Roadster, and discuss my spread in Elle Magazine!
Michael Kors: You're gorgeous, Heidi, really, but I just have to say: you are completely LOST in SPACE!!
Heidi Klum: HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
© 2008 Kate Heidel
