Sunday 6 May 2007

for others I put on a show....



I've been looking for a pair of shoes.

Normally this is not something I spend a great deal of time worrying about. I actually already have more pairs of shoes than C, although I'm hardly Imelda Marcos: most of my shoes are really very functional (studded football boots, 5-a-side football boots, outdoor running shoes, indoor gym trainers... that kind of thing). The problem is that I don't really have very much in the way of smart shoes. Oh, sure... I've got a pair of black Doc Martens and a nice pair of RM Williams Simpson Dress Boots that I wear for work, but I've not got anything really special.

You know, the kind of thing that you might wear with your made-to-measure Savile Row suit at your wedding....

I got a little swatch of the material my suit is being made with through the post the other day. Armed with this, we headed into town yesterday to see if we could find something suitable. The suit is going to be a brown herringbone, so I had in mind a nice pair of classic brogues, or something similar. Nothing too fancy.

What is it with these bloody clown shoes? It appears to be impossible to buy a pair of decent men's shoes that aren't twice the length of your feet and have tips that are raised off the ground at the "toe" and point about 45 degrees up into the sky.

I'm the best part of six foot five inches tall. I have big feet (UK size 12). They're not freakishly big on a man of my size, but they're certainly bigger than average. The last thing I need is a pair of shoes that make my feet look even bigger.

I have visions of owning a pair of shoes that will require me to arrive at my wedding in a collapsible car with a buttonhole that squirts water and a bucket of glitter....

.....Actually, that sounds like kind of fun.

I'm going to have to look in Birmingham, I think.

9 comments:

  1. Heh, loving the image of a clown-themed groom. C. might not like it, but I think it's great! You could pull the ring out of the big red nose... *G*

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you try Gordon Scott in the Broadmarsh Centre?? The last bastion of sense in shoe shopping in Nottingham as far as I am concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tina - I did, and they were very rude and unhelpful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. How very refreshing to hear of a man who's interested in shoes! I suppose this is where getting married in traditional Highland dress makes things a great deal simpler - you can even hire the shoes if you don't fancy shelling out for them.

    (Sorry, not at all helpful, but I do love a man in a kilt.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. shoe problem resolved.

    ...as long as they can get my size in anyhow.

    ST

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice!

    Sorry about the Gordon Scott folks being rude - I'll have to have words with them...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'll be more specific about Gordon Scott (and when I was growing up, we used to get all of my school shoes from the branch in Northampton). They did have some nice shoes - by people like Barkers and Church's. Proper, traditional shoes. Timeless classics. Very promising. The lady we asked for help was surly and unhelpful. She went to look for the two shoes I had picked out to try on, and came back with one in the wrong size and one in the wrong colour. She offered no advice on fit and made no attempt to try and tell me about ordering or anything like that. Given that one of those pairs of shoes cost £300, I was not impressed. I could have asked, and if I hadn't found those shoes in Paul Smith today I might have done... but she pissed me right off and I couldn't leave fast enough. The sales assistants in places like House of Fraser and Ted Baker and Paul Smith were miles better. I might have bought my shoes there, but now I definitely won't be.

    Those paul smith shoes are great though. Fingers crossed they can get my size.

    ST

    ReplyDelete
  8. I buy all my shoes in M&S. Not a cool choice, but it suits me.

    ReplyDelete