I've been conducting an informal survey among the women that I know, asking the simple question, "What's the most you've ever paid for a pair of shoes?" I was somewhat appalled by the answers.
The reason I started this little quest to find shoe answers is that I read a lot of chick lit. Inevitably, there always seems to be something in there about shoes - particularly about shoe shopping. I don't understand women's obsession with shoes. Shoes are just straps of leather and canvas and rubber that prevent your feet from hitting the ground. What's so fabulous about that?
In my eyes, the most important parts of shoes are comfort and function. Super high stiletto heels scare the crap out of me and shoes with no back are bizarre. The combination of those two elements makes me cringe. Why wear shoes that cause you an incredible amount of pain, or point your toes in ways that are clearly unnatural, or produce that nasty squidgy sound when your sweaty foot hits flip-floppy moist leather. Blech. I just don't get it.
So I asked around. I think I asked about twenty women. The answers that I got blew me away. $200 was the average . The average - meaning a number of people had much higher numbers than that. One woman that I work with cited "$400 - but they were on sale, so they would have been $550 normally. I got a real bargain there." I'm sorry, but four hundred dollars for a pair of shoes is not a bargain. Go to Payless. A bargain there is $7.99. Granted, they're crap, but they'll last you a couple months. Or try DSW, where you can get some really nice shoes for far less than a hundred dollars.
I looked around online to find some really freakin' expensive shoes. I found a pair of Louis Vuitton mules that were $1080. Who in their right mind pays over a thousand dollars for buckles, leather, and a piece of cork??
The most money I have ever spent on a pair of shoes was ninety dollars. I was in high school at the time and that was a huge amount of money for me, but they were Doc Martens that I wore pretty much every day for the next six years. I loved those shoes. I wish I still had them, but I wore those things into the ground. SInce then, the most I've paid for a pair of shoes was $55 - a pair of work shoes that I wore often enough to (probably) get my full money's worth out of them.
But $1000? Even if I won the lottery, I wouldn't pay that kind of money for shoes. Hell, if I won the lottery, I'd quit my job and go to cobbling school, become a shoemaker, and charge people astounding sums for my wares.
It seems like some women would actually pay for them.
Comments (2)
My docs were my most expensive shoes -- something like $95 dollars -- but I'm still wearing them more than 10 years later, and they still look great.
Posted by: Kerry Higgins Wendt | June 27, 2006 2:31 AM
I can accept Docs. You wear them day in and day out. But strappy sandals that you wear 3 times, having paid $200 for them? That's not much by way of return on investment, you know?
Posted by: Joy | June 28, 2006 12:50 PM