Friday, January 05, 2007

"Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!"

Women buy and wear hot shoes for other women. We should all just accept this, and embrace this, and be happy.

Now, if you still saunter through the shoe section looking for that perfect high heel to impress your man, or the ultimate strappy sandal to score you a hottie at the club, trust me, some day you'll see the light. You'll be sitting at the coffeeshop in some impossibly expensive high heels, and the 4000th woman in a row will tap you on the shoulder and say, "Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!" and you'll sigh and give her a half-assed, "Thanks," while staring longingly at the hot guy a few tables over for whom the expensive high heels were intended, who is not complimenting your shoes (and will never compliment your shoes), when it hits you: Here you are, waiting and yearning for the male attention you dreamed your footwear would bring, brushing off all these perfectly lovely female compliments, but what if those female compliments are good enough? What if they're better than good? Why are 4000 woman compliments not as good as one man's?


Let me tell you, they're much better. Getting a shoe compliment from a woman is like having Bobby Flay come up to you at a party and tell you your seven-layer dip was incredible, like having Whitney Houston (pre-crack, of course) duck her head into your car window at a stoplight and tell you that she overheard you belting out "I Will Always Love You" and that you've really got something there, like having Mario Testino tap you on the shoulder when you're posing for Myspace self-portraits in front of your bathroom mirror and saying "You've got a good eye, kid." We women know our shoes, and our compliments should be appreciated and savored accordingly.


This is not to discount male shoe appreciation entirely. Some men are very knowledgeable about shoes (Manolo and Stuart, I'm looking at you), and this isn't to say the men who aren't don't try. Sure, my boyfriend will throw me a "nice shoes" bone every once in a while, but the truth is that I could put him in front of a shoe lineup that included a pair of ballet flats, some high heels, some nice boots, a pair of sandals, and those giant clunky thigh-high leather and metal leg braces that Forrest Gump had to wear as a child, and I could say "Which footwear seen here do I NOT wear regularly?" and he'd sweat and crack his knuckles and squint and finally break down and scream "Good god! Lay off! I have no idea!" Really, think about it, how many times in your life has a man complimented your shoes (I'll wait while you count on one hand)? How many times in your life has a man asked you "Why the hell do you need so many shoes?!" Yeah, that's what I thought.


Now that we have that clear, here are some impossibly expensive shoes that would earn you a heartfelt "Oh my gosh! I love your shoes!" from me:

Dolce & Gabbana

Miu Miu

Paul & Joe

Fendi (God I love these!)

Pedro Garcia

And some not-so-expensive ones:

Miss Sixty

Jeffrey Campbell

Two Lips

Seychelles

Nine West

(All from Saks, Net-A-Porter, or Nordstrom.com)

Today, tell a woman you love her shoes. Hopefully, she'll have read this blog (let's see...my daily readership divided by over 3 billion women in the world...yes, there's a good chance), and will truly understand what a wonderful compliment it is.

20 comments:

Honeybee said...

Very true. The only compliment with regard to my shoes I ever got from a man was downright creepy: after my half-hour presentation this elderly (french, may I add) businessman who I had never met before told me, he thought my shoes were fabulous (bright red stilettos). Talk about impressing people for all the wrong reasons. It took me about six months to get over it and wear those shoes again.

Moi said...

Ain't that the truth, sister! while I get loads of compliments from ladies on a new pair of shoes, my hubby doesn't even realize they are new. And I LOVE getting compliments from ladies way more than from men, really 'cause us women know fashion :)

Wahhh I want the Dolce&Gabbana pumps! :(

Anonymous said...

Totally true! The only thing better than receiving a compliment about your shoes from a woman is getting one from a man. That happened to me and I was on cloud 9 for well over a week!

BTW, those Fendi oxfords had me at "WOW!". I think I'm in love!

Carissa Duhamel said...

I find myself telling some poor girl this same unknown truth atleast once a week. Women dress for women! Men don't notice anything about a woman's outfit except when said woman is not wearing one. A female's compliment is worth gold.

Anonymous said...

You are so right W! I love when other women comment on what I wear, I makes me really proud as most women are all style savvy in unique ways, but a man's comment really doesn't touch the sides. I had a similar experience to Honeybee when I was stuck talking to a bloke in bar and he was talking to me about 'bedroom shoes' and how Manolo make great bedroom shoes and I could totally feel him eyeing up my own feet to see if I was wearing bedroom shoes - yuk!!! I could see he was confused because they were black, strappy and Gucci which are all the elements of a good bedroom shoe, but they were flat, so that threw him! I haven't worn them since...

morgy-poo said...

oh my god! i love those shoes!!!!

Tru said...

great post, of course we wear shoes for other women, lol

Anonymous said...

Awesome post!
I have to disagree though... not only shoes... almost everything! lol...

Love your blog!
Anne

mary said...

definitely, i've always recognizeed compliments from girls to be so much better than ones from guys. because usually they're grudging, said in the spirit of "i wish that bag was mine! but it's so cool i can't help but comment on it." so you know it means more.

Fargo447 said...

oh my gowsh! those are so cool shoes!
that is my best girl impression

Anonymous said...

Very funny, and very true!

"... man only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter." -- from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, written apprx. 1795-1799, published 1817

(I clicked through from Manolo)

Anonymous said...

Well, perhaps I am in the minority, but I am a straight married guy who ALWAYS notices a woman's shoes, and loves how they can absolutely electrify an otherwise mundane, officey outfit. When my wife buys shoes, I am always with her.
I know many men who likewise notice women's shoes, but are not likely to compliment them for fear of being thought a weirdo.

Anonymous said...

Tom, perhaps you are not in the minority because I feel the same as you. When my wife buys shoes, I'm with her. I've even been inspired to create high heel shoe art while waiting at the store. You can see a few of my pieces on my website, www.LuxuryArtZone.com Doug

Anonymous said...

men notice womens shoes much more than you think! its just weird for a man to come up to you and say.. 'hmmm nice shoes' its not what we do! i see a bloke with nice wheels on his car an i dont tap the window an compliment him on his choice...women are from venus...etc, etc... however, just so you know a pair of red stilettos will get my attention of the wearer every time! (~:

Anonymous said...

I'm a (straight) man and I notice shoes, both on men and women. Shoes totally make the outfit for both sexes. That said, I think the shoes likely to be noticed by a man are not necessarily the ones likely to be noticed by a woman. Like it says in the Jane Austen quote above, men don't care about how trendy your shoes are are or what brand. Classic quality is better than high fashion, and in the case of women, sexy is always noticed. All that holds true for clothes as well by the way. If it's men you are dressing for, go with classic quality over fashion.

Like the other male commenters, I wouldn't compliment a woman other than my wife on her shoes, for fear of being thought creepy or gay. I do compliment my wife on her shoes though.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to second Anne and say that I dress up usually for the sake of outshining other girls. I know I can get male attention (conversation and all) but I feel the need to dress up and one-up my fellow females. =_=

Anonymous said...

As the previous commenters have already said, I sometimes notice a female with nice shoes (probably heels) but I'm not going to compliment them or comment on them because I may be thought of as either a weirdo or gay (I'm straight). I guess it may be different with a girlfriend or wife though.

Anonymous said...

Hi Winona,

I love your blog and love women's shoes, clothes and accessories. I notice and compliment women I see wearing stunning and good looking coordinates and accessories all of the time.

Hopefully it should not creep anyone out as I love getting compliments on what I wear and how I look too.

Anyway there are men who notice and love women for ebing women and dressing up and putting out the effort to do so.

Keep up the good work !
Michael

pretty said...

Actually, from my experience I can surmise that wearing a pair of Nike trainers results in a 2:0 ratio of male:female compliments.

(please ignore the fact that an anything to zero ratio cannot mathematically exist...)

http://www.evolution-shoes.com/Roller-shoes-c3.html said...

wow,so nice post,thank you for share

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