Sisterhood of the Traveling Shoes

Monday: black Prada rosebud slingbacks

Though I mostly shop alone, I find that I’m never alone for long. Last week, I was by myself, trying on shoes at Bergdorf’s, when my solo mission suddenly became a group effort. The woman sitting across from me started eyeing the boots I was trying on and before long was chatting me up about which of her picks I liked best. And soon after that, she was telling me all about her life back in Canada and her former life as an immigration judge . . . Then I told her that I liked the black Louboutin pumps better than the Manolos. And after that I took a look at the suede Jimmy Choo boots she was trying on and decided to get me a pair too, thanks in part to a little peer pressure of the best possible kind.

The same thing happened a few days later, when I was at Saks. I was browsing in the Prada section when I saw a woman trying on these chocolate brown Valentino slingbacks with the furry flower on top — the very ones I’d had my heart broken over at Bergdorf’s because they didn’t have my size. I was so thrilled when the saleswoman found a pair for me too — and naturally I felt like I had my new friend to thank for that. Long story short, my BFF for a day ended up telling me all about her recent foot surgery and how she couldn’t wear high heels anymore — and she bought the pair of Prada pumps with floral appliqué that I had picked out.

There’s just something about shoe shopping that makes perfect strangers fast friends. I guess it’s because we belong to a secret sorority of sorts. We can recognize our common addiction at twenty paces, we have our moment together and then we walk away — usually in a swanky new pair of shoes!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2005 at 8:16 am and is filed under Shopping, Shoes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.