Do the shoes match the book?
Forget the purse- it’s all about cover coordinating!
Hello my friends,
The other day I tried to calculate just how long it’s been appropriate to start an email— any email— with “hoping you’re as well as can be expected during these trying times.” Some variation of this has been the necessary throat clearing at the top of a message, or the requisite last line, for at least… ten years now? When I tried to explain the “2016” trend to my father using this as the core thesis, as in when’s the last time we didn’t have to acknowledge societal collapse and collective pain daily, he said: “Never. We just woke up.”
He’s right— there are plenty of places in the world where free fall, betrayal of the public by an authoritarian regime and a numbing amount of violence have often, even always, been the norm. And there are plenty of people in America for whom it has been the norm also. Some of us just had the unearned privilege of ostrich-ing out for much longer. It’s hard to know the right thing to say or do, but I’m including links to the places that I’ve donated and turned to for information. If you’re a reader of this particular newsletter, I’m guessing you also want to understand how we can be most helpful to those being directly affected by ICE and the immigration crackdown— and that you have countless other major concerns about the state of this world, but this is an urgent place to start. I’ve recently begun following Gaby Del Valle for her on the ground dispatches from Minnesota. This piece from Lucía has not left my mind since I read it. I’d love to hear in the comments where you’re getting information you trust, stories that deepen your connection to those affected, how you’re affected (if you feel comfortable sharing) and any actions— community or nationwide— you are participating in and would encourage others to join.
Meanwhile, I know I’m not the only one turning to my special interests for comfort right now. “Comfort” has replaced the word “distraction” in my vocabulary, because I don’t want to be distracted from what’s going on. Whereas comfort is a way to sustain ourselves to fight another day. Because, as Gloria Steinem once told me just before she gave me a silver ring shaped like a vulva right off of her middle finger, activism is not a sprint but a life long marathon.
And speaking of lifelong, my special interests continue to be reading, hyper-specific moments in the history of design and… my mother? I guess not much has changed since I was 11 and Plum Sykes interviewed me for what I lovingly referred to as “adult Vogue.”
Fifth grade Lena was right about one thing. Manolo IS really classy! Although my latest eBay purchase is arguably for the least tasteful constituents of his customer base, which is why they are so important to me:
But I do apologize to Mr. Klein— the import of his work was lost on me as I trained my eye, for one brief year, on German minimalism (although vintage Jil has recently reentered my search terms, and if you’re a size small looking for THE power suit she’s right here.)
In our house, as in my mother’s life, footwear was never just a practicality— it was a religion. I’ve already told the story of my mother’s teenage hunt for marked down Papagallos, but to fully understand her relationship to shoes you’ve got to look at her art. In the same way Emily Dickinson hinted at latent queer longing, a true scholar will notice the subtle signs that my mother likes heels.
Laurie Simmons loves shoes so much that in the late 70s, she even tried to start a business buying cheap jelly sandals on Canal Street and vibing them out. “I used all kinds of enamel spray paints in amazing colors,” she tells me, still sounding rather proud. She walked up from 547 Broadway to the the original Fiorucci store at No. 626—think Dover Street Market meets Forever 21, refracted through a coke-y Italian pop-art lens— but when she unwrapped them from the “beautiful contrasting tissue” to show the buyer, the paints had “kind of melted the rubber and the tissue stuck to the shoes. It wasn’t very smartly done, but the colors were great.”
Her diaries from from that period are where she kept track of the endless list of fervent desires that defines being a newly minted adult: a self-sustaining career as an artist, a steady boyfriend, for her sisters to understand her better… and then multiple entries dedicated to her fierce wish for shorter, less knobby toes so that she might wear delicate sandals with pride.
When I was a kid in the 90s, there were two Soho shoe stores— Sigerson Morrison and Otto Tootsi Plohound—that were the place to be if you wanted more than just Mall of America normalcy or a department store’s Euro trend report. Their sample sales were legendary for the fights that would erupt as two hands (belonging to two different people) both reached for the same pair of kitten heels more inspired by mid-century furniture than by any aspect of contemporary culture. (BTW, the shoppable links start now— largely niche resale, all things I’d hoard if I didn’t find you all so irresistible.)
If you want to own a small piece of downtown fashion history, the Sigerson Morrison resale market is essentially untapped. Having had a contentious shift to new ownership, they closed the last of their stores and the current line doesn’t merit a lot of examination— though Kari Sigerson is the founder of Alumnae, which is a vibe. But the originals were well made, compelling shoes and it’s now $35 (as opposed to the 90s, when it was $350) for these little princesses. Or for $24.95 you could be Judy Jetson at her first school dance? And there’s someone fresh off a breakup who should surrender to this demonic possession…
While my mother was out being thrown around a slingback mosh pit, I was inside, reading. From the moment I finished my first chapter book without assistance (remember that!? When we called them chapter books? Like the literary equivalent of “big girl panties”) reading became my religion- books and magazines were the gateway to belonging (shout out to my tween idol @janebutthathandleistaken, who gave me so many hours of big sisterly advice she wasn’t even aware of via Sassy and Jane!)
I was obsessed, addicted, realizing that there was nowhere I couldn’t go and nothing I couldn’t find between the front and back cover. Before any signs of moody pretension set in, I devoured Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Judy Blume (meeting her remains a life highlight- she showed me her cowboy boot collection!), L.M. Montgomery, Karen Hesse, Mildred D. Taylor, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Maud Hart Lovelace, Karen Cushman (I eventually got to turn my fave into a movie 🕊️) and the One Last Wish series by Lurlene McDaniel. Primary fixations included young women, death and, of course, young women dying.
Reading may have been my main preoccupation, but I also tested positive for my mother’s shoe-obsessed gene mutation. At my least popular, I thought they were a siren song that would call the right people to me, like if I could just locate a pair of floral Doc Martens at a reasonable price I would suddenly be invited to Six Flags with the four nearly identical brunettes who dominated our 6th grade social hierarchy. As an angry teen vegan I spent months wandering Chinatown looking for faux-shearling UGG style boots (I no longer want them, but they do exist! And FYI, my current approach to consumption involves sticking with vintage on leather, wool and silk.) When I got to Oberlin, I had brought no less than 42 pairs of cut price/vintage shoes, a collection I’d assembled carefully using my babysitting money, my mother’s bargain hunting skills, and Jemima’s glamorous propensity for responding to a compliment by removing the item right off of her body and handing it to the lucky fan. An idealistic hippie dorm-mate— who always went barefoot except for when he wore a cow suit and rope Jesus sandals to an Occupy Wall Street protest— peeked under my bed and saw them all, tucked in tight like Willie Wonka’s grandparents.
He gasped: “Wowww, you’re a bad person.”
I got older and found, to quote Rihanna, that “I actually have the pleasure of a fluctuating body type.” Through all its many changes, shoes became the through line. Whether my pants were a US 2 or a UK 22— why no universal sizing? We have to come together— shoes were the one item I haven’t parted with when my body shifts.
Indeed, there are certain shoes I return to again and again: rewearing them because of how they make me feel, rebuying them because I want to relocate who I was, putting them on a character onscreen because of what they do narratively (the right shoe can do so much silent work for a filmmaker as a signifier of how someone self-identities— or doesn’t.)
So, without further detours, here are the top styles filed permanently in my mental library, using the Shoe-y Decimal system of course (thank you, yes, I’ll be here all week!) Each is paired with a perennial favorite book that never ceases to inspire. A few of them even create a color story that’s actually a…cover story… (okay, that’s enough, can someone take her mic???)
All original artwork by Phoebe Ward
For example, a Famesick velvet Mary Jane (fortune favors the bold, since hot pink piping knocks 40 euros off.)
The Commes sneaker iteration are good for those of you who want something a little less cosplay— going once going twice! Of course they’ve also done a pure classic and a full on Swan Lake. We are ideating, iterating, which is how we get from a perfect little Victorian shoe to these, which evoke something spiritually similar despite having nothing in common… and these pick back up the baby blue baton and take us full circle 🥿🦋
Belgian Shoes have a long and storied history, but perhaps no one has done more work to bring them to the mainstream than NYC treasure Isaac Mizrahi. We are merely joining him at a party he’s singlehandedly kept pumping since before Unzipped (arguably the best fashion film ever made…?)
Please enjoy this tour of his collection:
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I was lucky enough to know Isaac as a child (downtown was really small, you can’t believe how small) and he was always generous and patient and let me nose around his studio and attend his fashion shows, where I would position myself as close as possible to the top of the runway so I could watch Kevyn Aucoin (whose book I used in order to try day AND night look on my grandmother) do final touch ups. Once I behaved really badly on a family hike and my mother’s punishment was “I SWEAR LENA, NO ISAAC SHOW” and it turns out she meant it. I watched her dress and head out, sure she would change her mind, but she didn’t and that was probably good because I was never naughty again (until I lived on my own.)
For my first professional trip to LA, my mother brought me uptown and got me a custom pair of Belgians (I prefer the Medinette but Isaac likes the Mr. Casual.) I chose a teal fabric with lime green piping and they were the pride of my life– wore them for a fully fifteen years until they resembled dead tropical fish.
The fun thing about the custom aspect of these is that on resale, you’re getting a little dose of a total stranger’s fashion psychosis. There is no pair that feels like a “classic” because they’re all odd one offs, a glimpse at someone else’s idea of luxury. And even in cream it’s not a “quiet luxury– it’s noisy luxury.
The accompanying book:
The Adventures of Sandee by Isaac Mizrahi and William Frawley, 1997
I have a copy from when it first came out and I read it obsessively for its whimsical take on the fashion world, illustrated like a sexed-up Barbieverse. Isaac calls himself Yvesaac, Anna’s bob makes an appearance and you even get these slinky paper dolls.
French Sole
Repettos are a very nice shape. Fine, do you and wear a glove flat. But nothing beats the specificity of the French Sole, which are France by way of England by way of Gossip Girl by way of Nikki Hilton.
Can you believe the founder’s name is Jane Winkworth? (I can.)
As with Belgians, the resale variations are endless and any trend we embrace they have already tried.
Some of these are very Amy W, although she apparently wore Freed.
The book: Dancing On My Grave by Gelsey Kirkland and Greg Lawrence, 1986
This was one of the first memoirs I ever read, after I told Laurie I wanted to read more “sad books about ballet.” Gelsey is the first woman I remember speaking openly about substance misuse, body dysmorphia, ambition and pain. Her willingness to be inelegant in a profession predicated on elegance (and excellence) stayed with me as an example of a different way to do it.
Nike Air Rift
This is a complicated one because of the SKIMS re-issue (not MY Nike Air Rift) but these defined my high school life because of the coolest girl I ever knew— my first idol, who I would have followed anywhere. Lily has been gone for almost twenty years now, but her style— ripped vintage tees with leather pants and huge men’s sneakers, or a 1950s house dress with her Air Rifts, her half-bleached hair tangling down her back, occasionally shearing it all off because she didn’t think about beauty that way— will always be the ultimate.
When I was twelve, Lily (who was 17 at the time and often babysat) walked me across Broadway to the sneaker store and helped me pick my first pair. They were black and pink and I wore them every day for months (look ma, no socks!) until, frankly, they stunk like drowned rats. You live and you learn (to wear the tabi socks.)
I’ve hunted for only resale/deadstock so we can have that authentic air rift energy. I had these and I feel so sad about whatever dorm they were left in, especially as they resale for $400-800 so I ain’t gettin’ em back. The Kim K effect means it is not really the time to invest although there are a few pairs that aren’t priced like a full panel of blood work in a country that makes health a luxury. Pastel heaven!
Lily was also a proponent of the Air Mocc– these in white, at $50 not so bad, feel like they fall firmly into the weird fucking shoe category that @lianasatenstein and @nicolaiarips are world leaders in.
In a city lousy with style, people stopped Lily wherever she went, asking her where she got her clothes. But of course it wasn’t really about that. It was about that artful dodger energy, that impish street princess thing, that easy glow. I had a dream a few years ago that I ran into her outside Fanelli in Soho. It was real in the way that only a rare kind of dream feels real, because something energetic is real. In it, I kept trying not to cry, as if I might scare her away. She had on a silk floral dress and she said “I’m just back in town for a day” and she hugged me and I smelled her white musk.
In honor of my beautiful lost friend and young women influencing each other in a city overrun by boys who have been told they’re the best at things, the book is Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson, 1983.
This is Johnson’s memoir of her and the other college age poetesses, struggling to make their way in the shadow of the amphetamine “genius” of the beat generation— it’s a book I reread often.
The Miu Miu mule
In 1997, my mother went to Italy on a work trip and a friend took her to the Miu Miu outlet outside Milan. She returned with a transcendent pair of women’s size 5 platform mules for my tiny feet, electric blue with pale purple bows and a striped rubber athletic sole. I am pretty sure I cried, like this little boy who got an octopus.
I wore them nonstop despite the fact that they gave me massive blisters— I was wearing them the first time I was cat-called, by a man parking his truck on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. I can still hear the way they slapped the pavement as I ran home, wondering “doesn’t he realize I’m a child?”
After that, they gave me the creeps. I couldn’t separate them from what had happened- brief as it was. It was like he’d cast a bad spell on them. By the time it occurred to me to try them on again, I’d long outgrown them. At some point, they went to Housing Works.
I’ve never refound them, which is why I search “Miu Miu iridescent kitten heel vintage” about as much as I call my mother (a lot.)
The book: Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, 1989
Also iridescent. Also of a time. Also both innocent and transgressive, nostalgic and scary.
Stella Iconic Transparent Pump
Since Stella was the first designer to make vegan a moment, I babysat every Tuesday, Thursday and on weekends for more than a year to be able to buy these for my high school graduation. Took the train into the Meatpacking district, all my cash in an envelope inside this fanny pack inside my backpack. Left with only a few quarters, felt so gorgeous it hurt. They’re still being made. These, from same year, are insane.
My next big purchase was a pair of Stella knee high cowboy boots, so hard to slide on that I would wear plastic grocery bags over my socks (still sort of impressed I figured that out?) I never took them off in front of anyone— I was still a virgin (and I still can’t drive)—so I didn’t have to worry about that!
The Book: How to Have a Lifestyle by Quentin Crisp, 1975
Hamish is a bit of a modern Quentin, only their living situations are quite different. The thing about social media is it’s made everyone a gadfly and no one a gadfly, right? I have a copy that Quentin signed to my father in the 70s. There’s something so tender and brave about my young, preppy father showing up at this unabashedly queer, bohemian event there would have been no language for where he came from. He knew he wanted a lifestyle— he just didn’t know how.
Quentin said: “Style is not the man; it is something better. It is a dizzy, dazzling structure that he erects about himself using as building materials selected elements from his own character.”
Vivienne Westwood Pirate Boots
Jemima had them. I didn’t. Crazy how that teenage hunger to match your best friend never fully recedes. It’s not like if I’d had the boots, I suddenly would have had her ass-length hair and beguiling personality.
These are very British it girl— Kate Sienna Alexa, a generation of Tumblr inspo vibes. It’s not original anymore, but it doesn’t have to be.
If the price is feeling demented— and it should, unless you luck into a special arrangement— there’s always the rubber variation. They’re hard to locate in the US, and I am not immune to the charms of that.
I finally seized a pair in a shocking hundred dollar exchange- the squiggles speak to something so primal, so deep in my hippocampus- reminds me of my parents’ wallpaper and Joana Avillez’s drawings.
The book: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915
Also British. Also hard to get into and out of. Also horny and a little painful.
Manolo Blahnik Spectator Shoe
My mother got married in a spectator pump- Manolo-inspired, but in fact… Ecco? She spent a full week last year trying to locate evidence there was a chicer Italian brand of the same name- good luck, babe.
Raise your hand if whatever your mother married in has taken on a Rosetta Stone importance! And thus, spectators have always seemed to me the height of thoughtful glamour, heel or no heel. And nobody does it better than Manny. This heeled iteration from the 90s is lovely. As a mule? Forget about it.
Here’s one pair priced to move, with what I like to call an “aunt heel” aka sexy and a little chubby.
This, of course, makes me think about the Manolo Timbs (maybe everything does?) but we can’t go down that road, we don’t have all DAY.
And since the spectator is smart AND sexy, let’s read a book that is too: Luster by Raven Leilani
The British cover is better for the look we are working on here, btw…
HONORABLE MENTION: Olivia Morris Tattoo Boot
Found her through her house slipper collection. Did some googling and found the tattoo boots in the Vionnet, became obsessed. Located only one pair, on Vestiaire and in my size (the listing remains, evidence of my victory)
Have worn them once, out to a cocktail party where I kicked my foot out a lot waiting for someone to say something. They’re not at all uncomfy, but I prefer them among my books as an object of infatuation, like my Roberta de Camerini bags and handkerchief trio.
The Book: Problems by Jade Scharma, 2016
A perfect novel: spiky and dense, funny and tragic, odd and surreal, one in a million and not for everyone— much like this shoe.
Love, safety, head in the clouds and feet on the ground,
Leenz
There’s a book for this… 9 1/2 Narrow My Life in Shoes by Patricia Morrisroe. She tells the story of her life in a Catholic household and school system by way of popular shoes during the era. I will never look at the Beatles or mascara the same way again. Nostalgic at worst feminist at best.
Good god.