Shoe Save Seventeen

Another Shoesday, and another pair of shoes saved! This week the shoes I saved for my shoeperwoman.com Shoe Challenge are a pair of Colin Stuart espadrilles.

About five years or so, I decided that I really liked espadrilles! This was around the time they were showing up in many store windows and fashion sites. So I thought hey, I would totally wear shoes like that! I looked online, and looked some more and found some great sites that had all kinds, but not in my size. I finally came across a site that would hand make them for you. Yes, how cool would that be, a handmade pair of shoes with your color of choice and in my size! To my dismay, the site was in Europe and of course, it would cost to have a handmade pair of shoes and it would cost to have those shoes shipped! So, I gave up on the idea of finally finding something I would wear that was a little different because NO WHERE had them in my size, and I wasn’t going to spend to have them made and shipped across the ocean.

Then one day not long after, I got a catalog in the mail that carried Colin Stuart brand shoes, and, oh yeah, they came in my size. My hope was restored, and it seemed that I too may get a pair of espadrilles!

And I did. I ordered them right away, and then waited for months, and months to finally wear them. So much for having to have them at that very moment!

I had a problem with these shoes. They were super cute on everyone else, but not so much on me. I looked down to see the small black canvas covering my toes, and I was reminded that my feet are too small to look okay in these and there are laces that I had no idea how to tie! (Of course, I know how to tie shoe laces, but these were different.) How did they wrap around the ankle? Start on the front, crisscross, then to the back? Or start at the back, crisscross, and then to the front? And what about tying them? I was familiar with how to tie pointe shoes from my ballet life, but what about regular shoes? Small knots tucked in, or big bows? I do not do BIG BOWS! Oh, no, too many questions, so back they went into the closet. Pretty pathetic, huh?

Well, I finally got them out again and figured, I can do SMALL BOWS, and I reminded myself how much I wanted espadrilles, so they finally got their debut to a STOMP show. This week was the fourth or fifth time they were worn.

I really like them! But here is the ironic part: now that I am finally confident enough to wear them, the braided part that wraps around the wedge is falling off! They must have been put together with cheap glue and so they won’t be worn again until I get this fixed. Bummer…