Louboutin Lusting and Do It Yourself Disasters

 Following my diatribe on a proposed home craft, not unsurprisingly, my sister Elizabeth was the first to chide me for promoting a hackneyed and most likely poorly executed, pedestrian activity; I am the first to admit that pouring glitter all over anything is, indeed, trite and reminiscent of elementary school endeavors with paste, construction paper, pastels, scraps of yarn, and other such detritus of the home. In a series of passively chastising messages, featuring condemning articles about emulating Louboutin pumps with glitter, Elizabeth spurred a bout of nostalgia concerning a favorite ironic memory, enhanced by another anecdote, of one of my dear, though rather hapless, clueless colleagues.

At the beginning of the summer, while attending a large oncology conference in Chicago, this extremely intelligent, though occasionally socially lost, colleague decided to give me a long and involved lecture on the art of professional dress. As with tastes in visual art, music, food, other aesthetics, fashion perspectives are largely subjective, albeit, largely and predominantly formulated by a behemoth and intricate incorporation, joined by a suffocating media. That being said, listening to a long and lingering lecture, given by a woman whose sweater is obviously on backwards, was a bit much for me that day. As my colleague explained to me her art of pairing sweaters with suits, all I could concentrate on were the sewn seams of the tag of her backwards sweater. We rode together in a tight taxi, darting between the other cars and concrete barriers, as she artfully rambled on about her tenets of color choice, fabric choice, longevity, and traditionalism. I somehow maintained composure, slowly sipping my much needed cup of bitter, overly cooked coffee.

A few weeks ago, I learned through my colleague and dear friend that this very woman, a bastion of precise and inarticulate instruction, learned somewhere to paint the bottoms of her heels bright red. Somewhere, manufactured by some craft factory, there is a red paint sealant, almost, or at least seemingly, designed for women to plaster upon the bottom of their shoes. Nicole and my mutual colleague, naturally, had no idea what famous fashion designer she was emulating, however, her tenacity and gumption prevailed. So, in short, if this long rant has a point, indeed, Elizabeth too has a point: replicating designer shoes with home crafted remedies can be a silly prospect, a tried and redundant one. I like, though, at least in some sense, the idea of a world where a crazed scientist, in her hurried trance, in her upside down and inside out style, too, can participate in the current throbbing trends, without spending the funds.

(image taken from Nadine Jolie)