I’m not really a major heels wearer, despite being five foot nothing and having everyone else tower over me. Apart from my boots, very few shoes I own have a heel bigger than an inch. It hasn’t always been this way, I used to have many love affairs with many pretty shoes. I ignored all warnings of how crap they were for my feet, ignored the pains in my feet and relished the moment at the end of the night where I got to throw them off at the front door, curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and feel the relief sink in, from the toes up.
Heels make you feel taller, stand better, more confident. I feel like a proper lady in them – being my height, I learned to walk in them from my early teens so unlike the many, many girls I see stumbling around town on a Saturday evening, I could actually pull it off. Alas, in my first year of college, I pulled my Achilles Tendon and ever since, my ankles have been fairly fussy about what level of heel they will put up with, and for how long, so my lusting after beautiful shoes that make me feel ten feet tall remains mostly the stuff of window shopping.
Apart from one pair. A pair that was brought to me by fate, for sure. I wandered into New Look one evening on my lunch break from a particularly horrible day in work, in a job I absolutely hated and should have left far sooner. And there they were. Black heels with a cone heel, laced up like ballet shoes with ribbons. And not only that, but they were priced down from 45 euro to just a tenner, and were in my exact size. I nearly sang with happiness and skipped back to the workplace of misery, my shift looking a damn sight better than when I’d left, just 15 minutes earlier. I got home to find a housemate had brought home his fashion designer friend, and the three of us coo-ed over them for a good half hour.
I lived in them on nights out. They were comfortable and went with everything; jeans and dressy tops, pretty dresses, skirts – you named it, I wore it with these heels. I felt happy and fun and most importantly comfortable in them, through all of the dancing – and there was a lot of dancing. They were the perfect heel.
And then somehow, one got lost. I’ve no idea where, and not entirely sure when, but one day, when I went to wear them, one was gone and the other was sitting there alone, like a lonely neglected lost puppy. Regardless of my hunting, it was gone. And of course, they no longer made them. Argh.
Time went by. Many more heels were purchased. None were as comfortable, as pretty, as versatile. They lay in the wardrobe unloved and unused, and my quest to find another pair as perfect as those I’d now lost went on. Recently, I’ve been trying to branch out away from my comfy flats and get back into my heels, and my yearning for them has come back with a vengeance. A google search found me a pair of the exact shoes, but two sizes too big on Ebay. I contemplated stuffing the backs with tissue, but decided against it. There have been many similar styles but none alike enough, with most of the issues lying with the heel, all seem to have impractical stiletto heels which I know I can’t handle. I even went so far as tweeting the New Look account to ask if by chance they had anything similar at all – but was responded to with a link for lace up boots. Sad face.
And so my search continues. For the gorgeous shoes that make me feel ten feet tall, even though I’m only five.
Have you ever had that irreplacable pair of shoes or item of clothing that you yearned for years after? Or have you seen my shoes in a size 4/5? Leave a comment below!