Irregular Inspiration

(image taken from Irregular Choice)

I unearthed an intense love for the shoe brand Irregular Choice while traveling in London awhile back visiting a dear friend; while meandering through Camden, she led the way to one of their boutiques. Since that afternoon, I have learned that, despite no store in New York, I can peruse their wares at a slew of various online fashion purveyors, including ModCloth. With bombastic embellishments, featuring sculptural elements, dyed lucite, emblazoned embroidery, these shoes are certainly not for the meek, the mild, the mute.

During an antiquing excursion, on the Friday following Thanksgiving, a sort of tryptophan and pinot noir-cleansing ritual, I stumbled on these adorably funky vintage wedge sandals at the back of a dusty stall in an antiques mall in rural Pennsylvania. The conceptual resemblance is uncanny. Slender fingers clutch a small sharp knife, carving each detail, the veins of the bright green palms, chisel minute openings for the windows, the door. I imagine these shoes are handmade, hand painted. Decades ago, amidst sloping dunes, rounded mountains of millions of miniscule diamonds of sand, a tiny house, made immortal, dwelling soul dwelling in the soul of a shoe.