Shoes

Some things are beyond comprehension, and this style of shoes is one of them.

I was talking to my officemate a couple months ago, and she mentioned that her grandmother wore the same pair of shoes for most of her adult life. It's as though they never wore out, because they were so out of fashion, there's no way she'd have been able to replace them.

So I asked her if they were black lace-ups with chunky heels, and of course they were. My grandmother wore the same shoes forever and ever, until she had her stroke and had to wear slippers.

There must have been some secret Grandmother Shoe Catalog, where women of that generation (my grandmother was born in 1897) got their resupply without anyone else being any the wiser. With the passing of the Grandma-Shoe-wearing grandmothers, I would have expected that secret supply company to have gone out of business.

But no. Chadwick's catalog has them for sale. "Updated" of course, with 3-inch heels, rather than my Grandma's inch-and-a-half heels.

There's no way I'd wear these shoes. I might as well say, "Look at me! I'm pushing 100 years old!" I might as well go out and buy a Depression-era cotton dress that fits me like a sack and complete the ensemble, so I could look like Renee Zellweger in Cinderella Man.

But I suppose my daughter's generation doesn't have this style of shoes permanently associated in their minds with their great-grandmothers. I suppose it looks Ultra-Retro to them and may even be a fashion improvement over the Seventies-Retro designs. Maybe.

I hope my daughter doesn't buy these shoes.