Found!

Who Needs Dreams?

The shoes in the photo above were made for a girl by Chicco Ruiz, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They bear tiny pennants in metallic fabric. This photo was taken late at night as my boyfriend and I were wandering the streets Palermo, a neighbourhood there.

I haven't been having any shoe dreams lately; this could be because life is sort of like a dream. Vacation was like a dream. And the shoes I encountered in Bs As were accordingly dreamlike. Now I can only think of real shoes, living on in a place where I am no longer!

Chicco Ruiz's shop (Thames 1780) was but one example of the simple gorgeousness that seems to be part of daily life in Buenos Aires. A living wall replete with plants on one side and decked out with antiques on the other, it was like a chic, enchanted cabin. The window display was of children's shoes--including the smallest pair of brown leather sandals the world has seen--in bird cages, set on top of aluminum that reflected all the lights outside...dim streetlamps and headlights of cars whooshing past. Drivers in Bs As aren't so much assertive (as we say here) as courageous and in a hurry.

On another street in the same barrio was Mishka. Here were the shoes I needed on my feet. Peeking into the window at night, I decided to return the next day and buy at least two pairs. I did, and brought them home in pink flocked shoe boxes. I've never seen shoes like these before: inventive, unusual, practical and pretty all at once. (This happy customer knows what I'm talking about.) Viva Industria Argentina!

In total I bought four pairs of shoes, if you don't count the slippers. The other two pairs are amazing: electric blue oxfords with a woven toe-box, and golden flats with a sparkly, crackled finish. These I got at Bottana, which is on a beautiful street parallel to the zoo in Palermo, or near Recoleta. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure where I was for 10 days. Right now, I can't find Bottana's website, but I can tell you that I just got lost again gazing for 10 minutes at a Google map of Buenos Aires.

Since I got back I've just been retracing my footsteps. Before you get the wrong idea, shoes were but a tiny fraction of everything that is charming there, and were certainly not a big priority for me. But, it is shoe central.

And for one million reasons, I now have a tiny, gleaming pennant waving in my heart from being there.

A Patent Heaven...

Yesterday I awoke before my alarm from a dream wherein a co-worker was showing me the most amazing shoes, at a store in an underground mall. There had been mirrors on all of the walls. Almost everything was in patent leather. The colours were sublime. Strangest of all were two pairs of patent leather boots, almost without definition, just blobby and puffy and shiny and yet wrinkled--like moon boots out of slick, mid-brown patent.

The colours! Out of this world. I hope to colour this image for you sometime soonish.

When a Pair is Not a Pair

Here are two pairs of shoes--one good-looking and one ugly, in my point of view--that I could barely scribble before I forgot them. The blue blotch represents the only image I can otherwise remember from what I know was a vivid shoe dream, which vanished right when I woke up.

The Shock of Toes

It's spring (officially, unofficially, and groundhogially), and my mind has turned to sandals. This recent shoe dream was inspired no doubt by my trying on of all my sandals and shoes last week. You know that feeling, when you put on your summer shoes, and you can't believe that you are able to walk around with your tootsies thus exposed for half of the year? Seems incredible.

But lo, sandal weather is on its way.

Above you will see three pairs of shoes that I found in my dream at a drastically reduced sale price. Obviously my dreams are being affected by the recession, too. (Everywhere you look, there are sales! Last week in waking life I bought a pair of boots at 76% off. I wonder if/how goods will ever return to their formerly inflated prices. But they will.)

The sandals in the dream were magical and strange. They had a black footbed and very, very, very skinny staps made of elasticated leather. The toe-cover featured tiny bands of coloured plastic as decoration, coloured red, black, green and white. The heel bed also featured these plastic cords (uncomfortable, I thought). Two wooden buttons, very rustic looking, dangled at the ends of long strings that attached to the toe-pin. Unwearable, but fantastic.

Then there were some hideous, white, round-toe flats with brogue detailing at the toe and two strips of metallic silver leather too. Absolutely horrifying--they looked like Sketchers.

Maybe my boyfriend is making an impression on my shoe dreams too, because I don't usually dream about men's shoes. This time, however, I dreamt of these beautifully simple, russet suede boots...they were notable only for their unusual colour and their perfect proportions.

And that is all. Let Spring begin.

1960s Silver, 1970s Brown

Here you are, a drawing that tells you a story. Details I can add to the written notes:

• The San Francisco I was in was vintage 1960s, like daytime Hitchcock,
• The fellow who picked up the lady from Berlin on his motoscoot was also wearing a very sparkly, giant, bulbous silver helmet,
• A fight between me and Monique is hardly a fight at all. We negotiated quite amicably for the el-cheapo Chanel pumps.
• In real life, I stay the heck away from shoes that have a "pin-up" vibe.
  

This was essentially a dream pitting the sixties and the seventies against each other, style-wise. I chose the sixties, determinedly, but I admit that I felt seduced by the wispy women exemplifying the stray, brown, sharper image of the 1970s in the dream.

There was much more to this dream (such as a sub-plot taking place in a log cabin) but I can tell you nothing more. Subject matter not fit for public consumption.

What I Did Last Summer

Quite obviously, I have been ignoring this blog. I have had this drawing to post since July 16, 2008.

I no longer remember the dream that surrounded these shoes, I mean, I don't remember who was in it, where I was or why I was dreaming about these shoes. I am trying to reconstruct the memory, but I think the storage facility for dreams in one's brain is more like an antechamber than the ballroom where all lived memories gather. (I like thinking of my memories at a raucous shin-dig, with music blasting.)

One aspect of these shoes that I notice is their openness. Each one has a part missing--how Foucaultian! (Funny word...like "Mancunian" for someone from Manchester.) They display a particular absence, either in the heel, the toe or the vamp. Curious that the cut-away parts are at the start, middle and end of each shoe.

I don't think it means anything.

It was summer.

My feet were probably too hot.

Hence the crinkly, distressed gold foil leather.