Sole story

‘Foot’ for thought?

From  Cinderella, to Carrie Bradshaw  and finally Imelda Marcoss . one seeks to discover  fascinating reasons why footwear is seducing our imaginations — and emptying our wallets — more than ever.

Her wardrobe was bursting at the seams. One look at it and we know it is full with shoes of various types- stilettos, sandals, pumps , you name it she has it There are shoes everywhere. Behind the table , under the beds, piles of footwear stacked neatly by the wall , her den looks like a wholesale store. It is shoe paradise, one that evokes a wistful sigh from girls. Welcome to Sunaina’s sole story.

 We’ve heard of the age old clichés of collecting stamps, coins , and old relics. The generation today begs to differ. Stamps and coins are fast being replaced with unusual souvenirs –  footwear topping the list for the ‘it girl’ of today.

 A Typical urban lass owns an average of ten pairs of footwear. Then there is the faction of people who make collecting shoes a hobby – no doubt taking a leaf out of foot fettish first lady of Phillipines Imelda Marcoss. Sunaina a 22 year old from Mumbai  has been on a sole scouring spree from age 19.  Today , at 22 , she has over 128 pairs of footwear and the number is rising steadily.

“It is not the idea of wearing them that appeals to me. It is the thrill I get of having hunted a specific design down and the power of owning it’   trills Sunaina who considers each  footwear in her kitty as unique.    Her collection does not stop to the ‘ la brands’ , they range from Jimmy choos to kolhapuris found in the busy Pune bazaars and oshos sold at Rs.100 on the streets.

Sunaina is not alone. Today every girl next door dreams of owning a thousand pair of shoes.  A 20 year old fresher haggling with the local shoe vendor at FC road Pune muses on  her addiction to buy at least one pair of shoe every week.” I think it is, no matter the women, how beautifully perfect, we are all self conscious about our weight, and no matter how out of shape or in shape you are, regardless how all your clothes fit and make you feel, you're sexy shoes will always fit!”

Shoes also have a metaphorical connect to a woman’s psychological self. Statistics state that over 60 % girls resort to obsessive shoe shopping post   breakup and relationship woes.  ‘Buying a pair of shoes have mood altering   traits. ‘states Anitha Kumar , a member of Mumbai’s social circle. To her shoes are a collector’s item , and she validates that by explaining the way shoes are arranged in high end  boutiques and stores – on trees and pristine shelves.  She also attributes to the fact that a woman can always  rationalize shoe shopping as a logical buy- something that they can wear multiple days a week , this way they get to hold on to that pleasurable feeling longer.

Most metro cities in India , have a monopoly of shoe stores dominating the market.  Racks of footwear arrayed in colourful hues that drag the eyes of the women that teem around it is quite a familiar sight these days.

A shoe is no doubt more than just an accessory for a woman. The strong emotional connect she associates with it, reckons  it  to a feeling of catharsis , and to Sunaina who claims that she will beat Imelda Marcos’s  one thousand sixty pairs of footwear claims that she judges people by the shoes they wear.  This is why 

she looks at a pair of  stilettos more as an attitude than a high heeled shoe.

The sole story does not restrict itself to the Y chromosome alone.  The metro sexual men of today are equally obsessed, the only difference being their choice of brands over design. For Kanishk sengupta ,  the kind of shoe lace he teems up his Twelve pair of Reebok shoes , is more important than  wearing the shoe itself .  Kanishk obsesses with the type of shoe lace he accessorizes his sneaker with – he has shoe laces in every colour of the rainbow and painstakingly accessorizes his sneakers every morning according to his mood. Looks like the metro-sexuals of today are fast catching up with the ‘it girls’.

It is  said that  ‘A man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his. ‘and for today’s generation it is in sync with projecting an image of who you are  and sketching a personality through the hobbies they indulge in.

As they say ‘a girl can never have too many shoes.  

 ‘Foot’ for thought indeed.