Women More Likely to Remember First Shoe
By Manolo the ShoebloggerManolo says, here is one of those seemingly surprising stories that surprises the Manolo not in the least.
Whether they are a pair of Manolo Blahnik’s, Jimmy Choos, such as those worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City, or just an ordinary pair of high street shoes, more than 92 per cent of women could remember the first shoes they bought with their own money.
Less than two, however, in three recalled the name of the person they first kissed, the survey found.
An overwhelming 96 per cent of women said they regretted having thrown away a pair of shoes, while only 15 per cent felt sorry at dumping a boyfriend.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
[...] From The Manolo. [...]
December 16th, 2009 at 12:32 am
I don’t remember the first shoes I bought, but I remember the first shows I loved. I was three and they were white Stride Rite leather t-strap mary janes with dotted perforations aroung the opennings and I hugged the box to my chest with my old shoes in them as I wore the new ones out of the store with lace trimmed ankle sox. I remember vividly getting out of the car at my grandmother’s house and my oldest brother complementing my new shoes. I bought the same kind of shoes in navy for my goddaughter when she was about the same age as I was and she hugged her box too.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:03 am
I have had many shoes that I have loved, but I think for me the true memory that I will never forget is listening to the click of the heels on the wooden floor when I was little and my mother was getting dressed to go out somewhere nice. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ever make the same sound (wearing mom’s heels I would only make a shuffling noise), and I remember so clearly the first time I did. As cheeseball as it sounds, it was the first time I thought to myself that I might just be a woman.
December 16th, 2009 at 2:09 am
The first shoes I bought with my own money: salmon pink espadrilles.
The first shoes I loved: dark red patent leather shoes at Buster Brown’s. When I finally confessed to my parents that I loved them (they were surprised at my having such a desire and admitting to it), we went back to the store to look at them, and they were gone.
I’ve been a little sad ever since.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:30 am
I sell shoes and I tell me customers, never walk away from a pair of shoes you love, you may never see them again.
I don’t remember the first shoes I bought with my own money, but I remember my first pair of really grown-up, beautiful shoes that I loved. I was 15, and they were a pair of blue satin Bare Traps.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:31 am
I’m also apparently a pirate.
December 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I remember the first pair, they were beautiful MiuMius with kitten heels, ever so slightly futuristic yet elegant and quite fantastic. I bought them from my first money in a real job. I wore them for years and I still miss them, a lot more than my first boyfriend (whose name of course I still remember. In full).
I guess you’ve found the right person for you if you wouldn’t trade him/her in for a pair of shoes, for I would trade the memories of first boyfriend for the MiuMius.
But I’d walk barefoot with my husband and even give up my fabulous Prada boots.
I just hope he never asks.
December 16th, 2009 at 8:17 am
MaryB: La BellaDonna, she feels your sorrow. Oh, wait, that is La BellaDonna’s OWN sorrow. The shoes that LaBellaDonna loved: oh, they were splendid! They were the grey suede pumps, with a tiny Louis heel, and a grey suede ruffle around the vamp. The shoe AND the ruffle, they were lined with the silver leather! And they fit! Alas, La BellaDonna was trying to be “practical” and pay the bills. When she went back, the shoes, they were gone, gone, gone. La BellaDonna, she should have spent the sixty dollars for the shoes – the water department, the heat, they could have waited a little longer. We also do not talk about the sheepskin-lined black leather boots figured in silver, with the tiny heels, about which La BellaDonna made the same foolish decision. That was the hundred dollars frivoled away on the heat or the electric that winter.
The shoes that La BellaDonna DID buy, she wore endlessly! They were the Italian shoes, with the pointy toe and the low heel, and they laced up like the 1890s boot. They were made of the glove leather, and La BellaDonna, she had them re-heeled, re-soled, and PATCHED. She has them still.
Oh, Dan’s Shoes, how La BellaDonna misses you – you were the store that offered the designer shoes and boots at the prices the poor girl could sometimes afford, but you are gone forever, and there is nothing that truly takes your place.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Oh, man, I don’t really remember the first shoes I bought, but I do remember the first shoes I lost and still miss and search for a replacement of, three years on…
I live in Philadelphia for grad school, and had a job interview in Virginia, where I’m from. So I traipse down there, and stay with my parents the night before the interview, thinking that I wouldn’t have to worry about my Amtrak being late, and I could just show up and be all superfantastic. Except, I got sick with norovirus, and had to leave the interview early (I got the job though). I was too sick to go back home to Philly as planned, so I stayed on with my parents for three days. My parents wanted to mail me a box with some random “sorry you got sick” goodies in it the day I left, and I asked if they could put in a few of my personal items, most of which were inconsequential except for a pair of absolutely gorgeous, black patent leather, peep toe shoes that had beautiful polished wood wedge heels. i remember I bought them at DSW, and I cannot remember whose they were.
Except, the package got lost in the mail!!! I was living in a kind of sketchy apartment at the time, so I don’t know if a neighbor took the box, if it really got lost, I have no idea. I’m not sure if I was more upset about missing out on the “sorry we got you sick before your interview” care package or the shoes. My only excuse for asking that the shoes be mailed was I was still feeling really sick and wanted to carry as little as possible-and the shoes were kind of awkward to toss in a backpack.
Actually, let’s be honest. I still haven’t found the perfect replacement for those shoes (the grad student budget isn’t helping!), and I’m still looking. Definitely, it was the shoes. Le sigh.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am
11 years old. 1968. White Go-Go Boots with a long, shiny zipper down the back of the boot, all the way to the heel. Accept no substitutes, must have that zipper.
I still want those boots, although I’m not sure I’d wear now.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Bass Weejuns.
During her high school days, the Lisa worshiped at the altar of the Lisa Birnbach. Need she say more?
December 16th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Pink Charles Jourdan peep toe pumps with gold netal spike heels that had a ball on the end. A very 80’s shoe.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Oh, LaBellaDonna and Genevieve–we’re bonding in sorrow. There is something about loss in our shoe stories. I think there is a book to be written about shoes and loss.
December 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Brown leather over-the-knee boots that folded down. They had a 3.5″ stacked heel. I bought them at a boot shop on W. 8th between 5th and 6th Avenues. That was back in 1977. God, did I love those boots.
December 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Me, being a guy, I don’t remeber those kinds of details about my shoes. But I do remember a pair of black patent d’orsay pumps the girl I was dating in the mid-80’s had purchased. “Only $450!” she exclaimed as she showed them to me (she, having taken Sr. Manolo’s advice way back then, to save her pennies and her dimes and buy the superfantastic shoes when she could). Me, being a guy, commented about how many pairs of Nikes I could buy for $450.
She may have sighed. She put the shoes down and explained to me, gently, about women and shoes, and she taught me to tell the difference between a sandal and a pump, between a maryjane and a peep-toe, a t-strap from an ankle strap, a mule from a slingback…you get the idea. Truly, she loved her shoes.
This story, however, does not have the fairy-tale ending: She eventually dumped me and broke my heart, but I’ll always be grateful to her for teaching me about women and shoes.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Famolares. Brown oxford Famolares with a wavy sole back in 1975. I shudder to think now, but loved them then.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Hola to the MaryB (and the superfantastic Genevieve)! Truly, there is nothing quite like the loss of the irreplaceable shoe, is there? It is not the shoe trés ordinaire that disappears into the abyss; no, it is the one-of-the-kind, the never-to-be-seen-again, that is gone – gone forever, but not forgotten. Alas, while the Genevieve, she may curse the Fates (who were working for the Post Awful that week), and the MaryB, she was dependent on the parents, La BellaDonna’s pain, it was self-inflicted – and it does not feel any the better for it, either. La BellaDonna, she struggles to this day with “being responsible” and “she will go back for the shoes she loves when she gets paid”. These traits, they have woefully affected the superfantasticness of La BellaDonna’s wardrobe.
La BellaDonna, she tenders her sympathies to the Victor, for he has his own story of the shoes and of the loss, does he not? La BellaDonna hopes that the Victor, he finds the lady who is as superfantastic as her shoes, one who will cherish the knowledgeableness of the Victor, for she will be the lucky lady indeed.
December 16th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Black Doc Martens with the steel toe on the upper. They weighed more than I did. I still have them. I would never never wear them now–I am an old lady who wears pearls and Hermes scarves, but those shoes and the tat on my arm remind me of my feckless youth.
December 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
My first favorite shoes: Yellow jelly flats. I remember the best part was the little floral dust pattern left behind on my feet after running around the backyard.
The first “adult” shoes I bought were a pair of black satin stiletto sandals dripping with so many rhinestones they had to be zipped up the back. They were (are!) so lovely.
December 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
When I was 12 I asked my parents if I could have a checking account and much to my surprise they said yes. When the checks arrived they were pale blue and white striped, like a fine seersucker print. It was a few weeks later when my grown-up cousin Kristin came to visit she took me to the mall and I wrote my first check for a pair of oxblood-colored ballet flats. They cost $13 on sale. It was 1982.
My favorite shoes ever are a pair of a kind of modified Mary Jane Prada, black patent with white top stitching with a stacked wood 4″ stiletto heel and rounded, pointed toe. I made them my screen saver while I waited for them to arrive! They are ladylike and tough, the perfect shoe for running through cobblestone streets in Paris so you’re not late for your dinner reservation at the place with the Michelin stars. I’ve had them for 4 years and can’t bear to part with them even though they’re past their prime.
December 17th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Oh, favorite ever becomes a whole new category. Fluevog Guilia boots? Green suede 1940s-style heels? The astoundingly wonderful Gravati oxfords (old-lady shoes, I love them)? Pale pink stilettos with black patent leather heel and toe caps (an art deco look I couldn’t move in, but you could get from a taxi into a restaurant and back)?
No. The favorite ever were a pair of Robert Clergerie heeled oxfords that tied asymmetrically. Beautiful. Always got compliments. Completely comfortable while absolutely stylish. I sigh for them, now gone.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Alas, Bella Donna. The current love of my life is best described as a tomboy, who has trouble walking gracefully in kitten heels. However, in the 12+ years we’ve been together, she has yet to break my heart and I doubt she ever will. As Cara suggests, some things are more important than shoes.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Not the first shoes I bought with my own money, but the shoes that made me first love shoes: a completely garish pair of silver pumps of my grandmother’s. I was 9 when my feet caught up to hers in size and I spent that whole beautiful year (1985)playing dress up in her closet.
The shoes were maybe 10 or 15 years old and came with a matching clutch. At the time, I didn’t know much about what adults did when they went out (except that it smelled like Chanel No. 5) but every time I put on those silver shoes, visions of fancy supper clubs and orchestras were dancing in my head.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
ah, the first shoes I loved were my white shoe boots when I was 2 or 3. I really have only a memory of the memory, but they were lovely! Remember, in those days, the 60’s, children’s boots were all red, and went on over the shoes. These were the only boots I had EVER seen that were not red! they were white and beautiful and were worn like shoes. The shock came when the next winter came and I went to put them on only to find that my mother had given them away!! (I guess she figured my little brother would never wear them and I had most certainly outgrown them.) I woke up crying in the night, and managed somehow to explain to my mother that it was because of the shoe boots. I think she was shocked. But in retrospect, as I think of the enormous number of shoes in her closet, I think I see where my love of shoes came from…
December 21st, 2009 at 3:40 am
The first shoes I bought with my allowance when I was a little girl- light blue jelly flats.