Shoes glorious shoes - the story of a shoe addict.

Here is the entry that those of you who know me well will have been expecting on this blog…..shoes.  It is safe to say that I adore shoes. I love them all, from the towering stilettos I wear on a night out, to the pumps I go shopping in, and the converse I wear when I decide to go for a walk (hey, sometimes it happens!)

My love of shoes dates back to the time I learnt to walk. This also coincides with the time my sister was born, in March 1987. At 18 months old I knew what I liked and what I didn’t. My mum often tells me about the time she took me to buy my first pair of shoes, a milestone in any shoe lovers life! It was a few weeks before Jodie was born, so mum was heavily pregnant. Sitting me down in Clarks she found a pair of round toed black shoes and decided they would do. Well, I threw an almighty strop until she gave in and bought me a pair in red as well! At the time all the fashionable 18 month olds were wearing red shoes, so I would have been a social outcast without them! The shoes paid off, and when my long suffering dad took me to the hospital to visit my new baby sister I spent the whole time running around the ward listening to the noise of my shoes tapping on the floor and admiring the colour. Dad was not amused….

In my early years I experimented with footwear. There were the gems, like the trainers with purple and pink flowers, and the purple jelly sandals. However there were also the disasters, mainly the paper shoes I made which got soggy when I went out in the garden in the rain, and the roller-skates that were the cause of many accidents!

It was a few years later (10 to be precise) that I discovered the high heeled shoe. These gems had been hidden from me under my mum’s bed. Looking at them my 10 year old self realised they were something special. However trying them on did not go to plan! Unstable on my feet, wearing shoes that were too big for me, I crashed into a table, knocking it over and grazing my knees. Determined not to give up I managed to stagger across the room, and so began my heel wearing life!

Starting secondary school was the start of another battle with my mum over footwear. These battles happened a lot, with the battlefield being Clarks shoe shop. They start because I happen to be very unlucky for a shoe lover and have extremely narrow feet. Meaning that shoes in Clarks that fit me were a limited variety. The arguments usually panned out like this…..

Mum: ‘Here are some lovely shoes for you’.

Me: ‘Yuck mum, they are not cool, I want these.’

Mum: ‘You are not wearing shoes like that to school, the heels are too big! You will break your neck!’

Me: ‘Well at least my feet will look cool when I’m in hospital.

Mum: No, and that’s final.’

*Laura commences sulking*

An amazing thing happened as I got older…..I was allowed to chose my own shoes (I also had to pay for them out of my wages from my Saturday job in Superdrug) I am afraid this freedom went to my head, and my shoes collection grew dramatically! I remember trips to Bristol on the bus, when I would spend my weeks wages on shoes. When I got to the age of 18, and left home for University my poor dad bore the brunt of my shoe addiction, as he had to lug bag after bag of shoes into my halls. Once again…..he was not amused.

Now, at the grand old age of 25 I am still very much a shoe lover! One highlight was meeting shoe legend Jimmy Choo, my idol! I failed to get any free shoes from him, but he did complement me on my shoes. Little did he know that the shoes were the results of four hours the previous night staring at my shoes trying to decide what to wear to impress him!

I will leave you with a quote I found about shoes, which I feel sums up my relationship with them:

“Shoes cover and protect our feet when we walk. Shoes hold the memory of where we have walked, run or skipped. The shoes get worn and take on the shape and imprint of the feet. They can be the object of desire.”