Crisis in Denim - Crisis in Denim in New York

Monday

Aug302010

Extreme Shoe Makeover: Tomorrow is Another Day

Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:47PM

As I mentioned, my broken heart has left little interest these days in browsing Bloomingdales, lingering in Loehman's, or even scouring sample sales (once my favorite New York pasttime).

However, I have been -- and only because I have to-- shopping for shoes.

I hear you rolling your eyes. Ms. Crisis in Denim finds shoe shopping suuuuch a choore. She'd rather have root canal or, worse, watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But it's true. And broken heart aside, of all the shopping there is to be done, shoe shopping is probably about third on my list of favorites. And for reasons I'm about to outline below, shoe shopping is quickly dropping further down the list.

See, I realized soon after moving to New York that almost my entire shoe wardrobe is inappropriate for the city. I walk about a third of a mile to get to the subway in the morning, and about that same distance from the subway to my office. I do that same walk home. In there somewhere I climb four steep flights of stairs. I walk to buy lunch. I walk to the gym. I walk to the wine shop. It is the life many New Yorkers lead.

I know it's good for you and all. Recent figures show New Yorkers can expect to live an average of nine months longer than their counterparts in other cities, and many scientists attribute this to the amount, and speed, New Yorkers walk.

But even though I have never been a fan of three-inch stilettos, over the past few years I've accumulatedI swear they were comfortable when I bought them. some much-beloved pairs of shoes and boots with kitten heels. (Even the name kitten heel makes me purr with delight.) My favorites are Jeffrey Campbell open-toe slingbacks (they're so cute, I have them in black with patent leather trim, and gold with bronze trim. ). On the first warm day, I slipped them on, eagerly.

Wrong. By the time I had tottered all the way to the subway, I wanted to fling the shoes on the tracks.

Plus, many of my shoes with heels are tighter in the toes, and in the last few years, the genes of my grandma Orshokovsky have taken control of my feet, leaving me with unmistakeable bunions. When I wear heels these days, even low heels, my feet throb.

I'm the F to the E, R, G, the I, the E... I'm FergaliciousAnd let's not even talk about my favorite find of last winter that I will probably have to give away--- a pair of little zip up booties by the brand-- wait for it-- Fergalicious, by Fergie. Sigh. The heels are low, but they're also thin. I work on a college campus paved in charming brick and cobblestone.

All I need is to be the new girl who gets her heel caught between two charming cobblestones and goes flying down the college walk.

So, I made a resolution.

From now on, it's all flats, all the time.

This should be easy, right? Flats are in style.

Nuh uh. Here's what happens when you go to a store looking for flats.

The only shoes you like at all, have high heels. In fact, you find yourself drawn to four-inch platforms, spiky pumps, wedge espadrilles. Anything but flats. At Nordstrom a few weeks ago, I went looking for brown sandals.

The patient saleslady brought me pair after pair of practical Merrel's, Dansko's, Clark's. All undeniably comfortable. Yet, I felt as though they had been designed especially to make this recently-dumped thirtysomething with bunions feel like an old lady.

I settled finally on a pair of Steve Madden gladiator sandals, relatively stylish with a very low wedge heel. The stiff leather thong between my toes did cause a cut that got infected and took three weeks to heel, but hey, you can't have everything.

I know I could wear sneakers to work, then change at my office. Remember Working Girl? But, pssst--- no one really does that anymore. Plus, my new co-workers don't seem to like me very much, which means I spend most of my day in my cubicle alone, with my feet tucked under my desk. Hardly worth lugging an extra pair of shoes.

Hope springs eternal. Back in my closet they go.So about once a week I go through my shoe wardrobe longingly. Sometimes I even start my morning putting on my heels. I get as far as my front door. Sometimes, as far as the elevator. But inevitably I retreat home, open my shoe closet, and slip on some flats. I'll try tomorrow, I tell myself.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

[Your Name Here] |

Harmonious Laundry

Monday, August 23, 2010 at 5:27PM

There are few times in life when every stitch of clothing I own is clean at the exact same moment.

Most days, either my laundry bag is so full it resembles a piece of bad public art, or my laundry is done, but 60% of my work wardrobe is in hock at the dry cleaner's.

However, some weeks, the planets just line right up.

Saturday, I started the weekend by picking up my dry cleaning (trying to ignore the fact that the $68 I had to fork over just to get my own clothes back could have bought the little dress I noticed at Brooklyn Industries). Then, Sunday night, I did my laundry.

That meant this week started with perfect symmetry -- my t-shirts and workout clothes and my dresses and blouses, all at the same level of clean.

I woke up this morning thinking "There is not a piece of dirty clothing to be found in this house. Everything is aligned, harmonious. This is the week everything is going to go right."

That pleasant thought lasted for exactly half an hour, until I happened upon my cat peeing into my second-favorite handbag.

April 11, 2010

Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 10:58PM

I have a receipt I've been keeping in my wallet, dated April 11, 2010.

This date is significant. Here's why.

On that Sunday, I wandered into a little shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I now live. The store was called Sweet Charity, and I was immediately a huge fan, not only because the owner gives a portion of her profits to animal rescue organizations (yay kitty cats!), but also because she goes out of her way to stock clothes for curvy women, since she herself is curvy.

I began thumbing through the sale rack (natch) and found a navy blue knit dress by Japanese designer Aoyama Itchome.

The dress hugged in all the right places, and blithely floated over the, ahem, wrong ones. There was a little tie at the top, a bit of embroidered embellishment, but aside from that it was perfectly simple and elegant.

I was already falling head over heels when the shop owner sealed the deal.

"Do you watch Mad Men?" she asked.

"I've only seen every episode about three times," I said.

"Well, you look just like Joan Holloway in that dress."

That did it. In case you don't know (and if you don't, shame on you), Joan Holloway is the busty redhead that all the men in the show drool over unabashedly.

She was also the favorite character of my then bf, who liked that she was clever and tough with a major dose of sexy.

This dress made me look like her? Sold.

I'm not saying I specifically bought it because I thought my bf would like it, but it did make it that much easier to carry that dress up to the register.

About three weeks later my bf broke up with me suddenly. I won't go into the details (it had nothing to do with the dress)— this is a blog about clothes and shopping, after all.

Meantime, between those two events (buying the dress and being, well... um... dumped), the dress quickly became one of my go-to pieces. Over the next three weeks I wore it to a work event. I wore it to what turned out to be the last Friday night dinner we would ever share together. A couple days later I wore it to a birthday party for his nephew, not realizing then that I likely will not see this nephew, or any of the other three little ones, grow up.

So what does April 11th have to do with all this? Not much, I guess, except it was the last time I shopped with any kind of excitement or pleasure. It seems there's nothing like a bad breakup to ruin a perfectly good Bloomingdale's afternoon.

I've done a little shopping since, for necessities mostly, but somehow these days the pleasure has just evaporated. I've frankly never experienced anything like it. Ms. Crisis in Denim not wanting to shop?! Who could ever imagine? It would be like a dog saying 'no thanks' to a bone. But so it is.

At least all this drama has been good for my wallet, and I've taken up doing some shopping in my closet.

Which will be the subject of the next post. Crisis in Denims is, well, maybe having another kind of crisis, so this blog may have a slightly different feel. Though it will still be riotously funny, just like before.

Plus, Ms. Crisis in Denim lives in New York now. So if the urge to shop ever returns, she'll be having many new sartorial adventures.

And you can still see all the old posts, so don't worry.

Speaking of which: I was browsing through them the other day and came across one from March 2009, in which I wrote about my bf and how he asked me how many pairs of shoes I had. In this post, I wrote:

"I want this relationship to work, and I want it badly. I want it more than I wanted a Benetton sweatshirt for Hannukah in 8th grade, and that’s saying a lot."

Well. At least I got the Benetton sweatshirt.

[Your Name Here] |