I like new clothes, I like clean clothes, I like comfortable, non-torn clothes. And shoes, too.
But shopping for them is not something I do on a regular basis. I do not hate shopping; in fact, I rather like a good deal of it, and not just purposeful, “I am going to buy A, B, and C and head straight home” shopping … but shopping for clothes and shoes is not something I do regularly.
The clothes part I can understand — it’s hard to find things that fit me, that look good on me, and that are affordable. But shoes …
I currently own two pairs of shoes, for for normal, everyday wearing, and a pair of running shoes that I bought several years ago, wore rather little, and brought back to Madison with me from Idaho this summer.
As for the other shoes …
Last spring and early summer in Berlin the pair of black $35 Payless shoes I bought at East Towne in May of 2004 with K before catching Shrek 2 finally began to wear out, first with graying and scuffing and then with a growing hole in the right shoe — the fate of all my shoes, left or right, due to my wide feet.
With Jyoti and Corina in town and in tow I went shopping at the Deichmann outlet in the Potsdamer Platz “arcade.” Shortly before closing we found a pair of size 46 slip-ons that fit well enough, although I really wanted something closer to a 47, a size they did not carry.
20 Euros … not a bad deal.
For the next week I suffered through blisters on my heels from the tight leather that hadn’t yet grown soft. I even switched back to the old Payless shoes, hole-in-the-side be damned, but eventually the Deichmann pair grew comfortable, I tossed the old lace-up ones, and have been wearing these babies for more than half a year.
They are a good fit now, widened near the toes, worn and graying everywhere, but they suffer from one little drawback — they’re as bald as Patrick Stewart and are thus a big problem during the winter. I suspect that another shopping trip is in order.
I do have some favorite shoes from my past, though. In particular — those we simply called “Camel Boots.”
Camel in this case referred not — really — to the ill-tempered beasts (not as the material from which they were made, their use, or their look), but to the cigarettes. This was Germany in the early 90s, with tobacco advertising aimed not just at adults, but quite explicitly at teens, and Camel had their own line of shoes. These things were brown leather, smooth, tied with strong laces, and truly shoes rather than boots — they weren’t even high-tops. Little Joe Camels dangled from the heels. The soles were much like the golden-brown gum erasers artists like, but harder — they collected grime over the years and turned even darker, but they had decent traction and wore down very slowly. They were, I suspect, the most comfortable, longest-last shoes I ever owned.
