I touched upon this subject on Christmas Day a little bit, but it has been eating at me quite a bit more since then, mainly because I've already broken my resolution and have bought more shoes since then. I didn't really make a hard resolution, but I did say 99 pairs were enough. Now I have to say 102 pairs are enough, and I no longer have quite enough space for everything. I was full up before.
Back when my collection was around 50 or even 60 pairs, I could honestly say that yeah, it seems like a lot of shoes, but I actually wear them all. And it was true! I did have summer and winter shoes, but except for maybe a couple of novelty items, I didn't really neglect anybody. Nowadays, by contrast, I just counted 10 pairs that I have not yet even worn outside the house.
Part of the problem is not just sheer numbers, but style. I would say that about three quarters of my collection is definitely on the dressy side, and that includes sandals. If I could actually wear heels to work, I would not be writing this now. The fact is, I just don't have occasion to wear heels that much, and especially not super dressy heels. The fact is, we don't really go anywhere anymore, especially after the pandemic. I do and will have the farmer's market, at least the one on concrete, but the type of shoe that I would wear there is limited once again by style--it needs to be rather casual. By my seat-of-the-pants estimate, I would say that I wear about 15-20 pairs out of the entire collection 90% of the time, and if I want to be brutally self aware, of that 15-20, there are probably half a dozen pair that I wear 75% of that 90%. I definitely have my favorites.
Because many of my shoe styles are quite dressy, as a practical matter I only have around 52 opportunities a year to wear half of my collection. Doing the math, even if I never repeated at any point during the year, that's one wear per year per pair of shoes. As a practical matter, this means some shoes never get worn at all. This was certainly never my intention starting out, but that is certainly what it has become.