mlroseplant

19 hours ago, spikesmike said:

mlroseplant: Nice color theme and heels. Other. - What kind of old cars are you talking about? Those cars in your driveway do not look that old. Interests? I own a 1934 classic Buick. model 41 series 40. So, what are you driving? Mike

Yes, I suppose in the grand scheme of things, my cars are not all that old. My main car now is a 2004 Crown Vic. The backup car is a 2002 Buick Park Avenue. What I am getting at is that most people in my income range drive newer cars than I do.

While I do not have a great passion for cars, I do have a number of vintage lawn mowers, a hell of a lot of old instruments (which all get played regularly), and of course, a lot of high heeled shoes.

If I had a dollar for every time some drunken patron has asked me to play Free Bird, I'd be a rich man.

Although I have not been keeping up on the "New Shoes/New Sandals" thread, I just got a new pair of Steve Madden "Barbb" sandals last week. I think they were made in three colors, and I have all three--black, bone/ivory, and now red. These red mules were I guess what you might call New Old Stock, as they had obviously never been worn. I did the unthinkable, inadvisable action of wearing them out untried. In fact, I never even put the things on my feet for the first time until about 20 minutes before I had to walk out the door to go to church. However, having two other pair of the identical model, and being very familiar with what they are, I took the chance. Besides, I wanted to get all the mileage out of my newly purhased red jeans that I could, and it would seem a shame to wear black shoes.

Everything went just fine, and I got to the point where I forgot I was wearing them, that is until it came time to load out my equipment. Carrying heavy objects while walking down a slight incline always reminds you that you're wearing high heels, I don't care who you are. Anyway, I got home, ran a couple of errands, so I did not take my shoes off right away. By the time I did, I was somewhat disappointed to find the following situation, pictured below. Disappointed, but not entirely surprised. As you may have guessed, like so many shoes in this price range, the uppers are actually leather, but the linings are not, and are therefore subject to the dreaded polyurethane degradation sitting right there on the shelf doing nothing.

Oddly enough, the black pair I have shows no signs of the same deterioration, and they've got to be about the same age, plus they've been worn really quite a bit over the last 10 years. It's not like I have to get rid of the shoes, but it is somewhat inconvenient to have one's feet covered in little bits of plastic at the end of the heeling day.

It has been a while since I posted any pictures, so here is one. It is nice to not have to force myself to go outside, now that the weather is reasonable. Yes, I still drive old cars.

May I gently suggest some explanatory content to complement the images. Brand and model name of the shoe, if available. How and why you got them. That sort of thing. Otherwise, we're just looking at another picture of somebody wearing black pumps, which, I mean, how are we supposed to react? I don't know about everybody else, but my first reaction was, "Yeah, those look all right. And?"

There are a lot of worse things in this world than jellies. They are certainly not for me, as my feet started sweating just looking at the image of them. However, I can't really explain why I find some things attractive either, so I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut. Along those lines, I have been looking for a pair of what I call Douyin Girl shoes, which are sandals with a lucite block heel, and usually a clear PVC upper strap. However, I've had no luck at finding just the right combination of heel shape and upper, and even if I did, I am sure that my feet would not like them.

That would make for an interesting video (or audio recording, as the case may be). Concerning the instant pair of sandals, another problem with not being real wood, and this is a problem I've had consistently with Jessica Simpson shoes, is that the molded unit bottom will split transversely in half directly beneath the ball of the foot. This seems to have happened on every pair of JS I've ever owned save one. Maybe it's just me.

Speaking of shoe failures, I had a rubber sole come off one of my Sofft sandals last night. Chinese made, of course. Not a difficult fix at all, since I found the errant piece.

As far as actual working boots go, I have long given up on the idea of buying a pair of "lifetime" boots. The reason is because in my personal situation, the insides of my boots wear out long before the outsides, and by the time they get to that point, they are kind of gross anyway, and it's time to get rid of them. It must be something in my personal chemistry.

Having gone through all of the above, I cannot personally report a great deal of difference in ultimate durability between my Chinese shoes and those made elsewhere. Sure, the Italian shoes are much nicer, but in the end, being non-Chinese is no guarantee that it won't break at inopportune times. After all, we are talking about a product which we use in a way it was never intended--to be worn and walked in.

9 hours ago, hiddenheels said:

Look really nice! I don't have any of these styles, but still working figuring out my style, so am not opposed to it. If it's wood, does it provide more stability?

If I may jump in here, I can probably answer that one, being the owner of more than a dozen pairs of wooden heels. First, it is rather unlikely that one is going to get actual hunks of hardwood in this price range, but second, it doesn't really matter as far as stability goes. I have wooden heels that are real, and many that are simulated, made from a variety of materials. The fact that it is wood does not intrinsically make it more or less stable in my experience. A number of other factors affect how the shoe walks much more than the material. Where it does matter is the sound. Actual wood or wood product does have a distinct sound compared to plastic.

20 hours ago, roundy said:

Another vote for almond toes here! Best of both worlds. I don’t mind a pointed toe but I do struggle to get a good fit vs a more round toe myself. Not a fan of really elongated pointed toes either though. 
 

Square fronted heels seem to be in fashion too atm. Can deal with it on a sandal but not shoes or boots. I didn’t mind it a decade or so when they seemed to taper a little more into a square toe but the ones I’ve seen lately seem to be cut square right at the end of the shoe.

Yes, this modrun super-square toe is just.  .  . ugly. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. Perhaps the reason why it's less objectionable on a sandal is because sandals are only two dimensionally square, whereas shoes add the third dimension of square. One might even call it cubism.

23 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I see your point, although in the case of China they do seem to have acquired a very poor reputation in terms of quality, workmanship and materials. And because of their dominance in world manufacturing, and the profit-at-all-costs mindset of the global brand names, they are leading the charge in the race to the bottom.

as for the philosophical reasoning behind not wanting to purchase Chinese made good, I suppose it’s like the vote. Nobody vote on its own is going to make a different, but collectively they certainly can.

 

 

We have a large number of electrical fittings at work, sold by a major brand name (Thomas & Betts). It seems that even they, with a longstanding reputation for quality, get the parts wherever it's cheapest at the time. We got in a large batch of supposedly identical fittings, and at least the boxes looked the same. About half the fittings were made in China, and half in India. Nominally and functionally, they were the same, but not interchangeable, mainly visually. If you just used them randomly, the finished product looked very odd and not uniform at all.

I have always wondered why pointy toed shoes get such a bad rap. I mean, it's not like any toes actually go into the pointy part, it's just kind of decorative dead space, kind of like the tail fins on late 1950s American automobiles.

I suppose there are two forks to this river: 1) Chinese made products are thought of in general as being poor quality. This is often true, but not universally true. I wonder if it will always be true. "Made in Taiwan" doesn't mean what it used to, and "Made in Japan" certainly doesn't mean what it used to, as far as poor quality goes. Conversely, "Made in USA" doesn't necessarily mean a product will be great. I don't know that it ever meant that, but it can be pretty dodgy these days.

2) China as a governmental/industrial entity bothers us for any number of philosophical or moral reasons, and we would they would cease to be a relevant player. The question then becomes, does avoiding Chinese products at a consumer level make any difference whatsoever, and furthermore, does it make the difference we want it to make? And then what sort of difference would that be, if we could do the choosing?

Yes, and the sad part is that when you can get non-Chinese products, they are made in Vietnam instead.

Oddly enough, I have been accumulating wooden heels lately. I'll have to get going and post some pictures. This is a style that I hope is coming back. Athough this particular JS model is on the chunkier side of what I personally like, I would wear them.

Either requirement is becoming increasingly rare as we move toward a more casual society, but we've beat that poor horse quite a bit already.

To be fair, I have never been required to wear high heels, and I don't think I should like to be for any reason. I can see where the notion of shackles comes from, and I can also see that I am either a freak of nature, or I am willing to go far beyond the normal effort to be able to wear my heels whenever possible.

I've said for years that 2 inch heels are not heels, and I don't see what the big fuss is about. Typical heel requirements for women have been about 2 inches minimum. I now know that for some people, desire or no desire, a 2 inch heel is almost an insurmountable hurdle for them to cross. For example, here is a woman who would love to be able to wear 2 inch heels, but simply cannot:

I would be curious to know how long the pattern would stay on the bottom.

Drinking and posting can end in tragedy.

I have noticed a huge increase lately of women who approach me and gush over my heels, while at the same time saying, "Oh I could never wear those, I'd break an ankle!" These largely tend to be Gen Z women and girls. You know, next time I get the chance, if someone seems particularly chatty, I'm going to ask, "If there were no comfort or practicality penalty at all, would you wear heels all the time? Would you wear heels to work?" And so on. I am truly curious to see what the answer would be.

I haven't really noticed a shortage of heels, but then I am quite willing to go used/non-current. What I have noticed around here is that the younger girls do recognize the niceness of a heel, but they only wear them for the dressiest of occasions, and then only a handful of them think they've got the physicality to do it. Otherwise, they wear trainers with jeans that are half-ripped away. And that's in the winter.

Ok, if Shyheels is going to bring it up, I will actually ask. What did you tell the machine to get it to write.  .  . THAT?

I lost my tailor several years ago. No, she didn't die, but I still need to find another one.

You realize, of course, that we're the only thing going on right now, and we're essentially talking about whether "Go Woke and Go Broke" is an accurate sentiment. Or maybe we haven't gotten there yet, but we will. After all, it's got to be better than just a plain horse and wagon on Mulberry Street.

I did see a woman in the grocery store the other day wearing red stiletto pumps with a pantsuit. Now there's something you don't see every day! At least not anymore.