Thursday, April 07, 2011

We are the goon squad and we're coming to town (beep-beep)

On the walk to the office this morning I found myself behind a trio of young people. That, in and of itself, is unremarkable (unless one draws fascination in the fact people were walking in L.A., despite the old Missing Persons song that makes claims to the contrary). What did catch my notice was the footwear of one of the trio, a petite woman.

From the back she appeared to be wearing ankle boots; solid leather (or whatever the material was) went from the heel to her pants. Being as tall as I am I soon came up alongside the woman and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something I would not expect: her toes.

Yes, her footwear was only ostensibly boots—or rather, I should say, only partially boots. The front portion of the shoe, along with the sole, was like an open-toed sandal. It made that slapping sound like a flat sandal does when it steps on concrete.

I must admit I was intrigued. I had not seen these… sandal-boots… before. I'd seen sandals where the straps went up the ankle, and I'd seen solid boots, but these were if you took the front half of the one and the back half of the other and sewed them together in the middle.

I guess they're intended to appeal to that demographic who enjoy showing off their toes but are ashamed of their ankles, or perhaps who need more support at the ankle level than a conventional sandal would provide.

Or maybe when it comes to shoes the designers have run out of ideas and are now just putting out designs where the origin can be traced back to someone losing a bet—or, perhaps more likely, trying to win a bet.

Clearly, I understand nothing about fashion. And perhaps I should wear a blindfold as I walk so I won't see such things. Eh, maybe that would catch on as a new trend...

2 comments:

  1. Something like Sophie Ellis-Bextor's boots, then, in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQuEnGvrvMU) at around 1:25, 1:45, and 2:40ish. Those are the silliest boots I've seen. I prefer steel-toed, myself. I saw a pair of steel-toed sneakers the other day. I thought that was a great invention.

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  2. No, the boots in that video are really just high heeled shoes with some straps that go up the ankle; the ones I saw were like flat-heeled, and where it was literally like you took the back of a boot and the front of a sandal and stitched them together in the middle.

    They were more akin to the first picture in this post I (finally) found.

    I won't ask how you were familiar with that video.

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So, what do you think?