The Tale of the Vintage Clogs...

Growing up, as the last of six kids (of which four are girls) as you can imagine, I wore a lot of hand me downs. Let me rephrase that, I wore a ton actually. I was always happy to get my hands on that stylish 'basket bag' or shirt or shoes, that had been passed down through a number of girls in the family. Sometimes by the time the item got to me, it was so last season. But my motto was, better to have it, than not at all. I spent what must have been thousands of hours in my neighborhood 'tailors shack' getting alterations on my 'wardrobe' for the next semester at school. There were skirts to be shortened, 'gathers' to be loosened, shirts to be turned into dresses, pants into shorts and sometimes- I kid you not - skirts. I also wore a lot of vintage, before vintage was cool. I would rummage through my mom's trunk boxes. "Seventies polyester shirts are 'in'?" Coming right up - a light beige one that only needed to be taken in at the waist ever so slightly. Long belted dresses? Score! Clogs? That one was a challenge. My mother, being a hoarder, of course had several new pairs from the seventies. Gorgeous, now that I look back , made from pure mahogany colored leather with tassels and impossibly high square polished wood heels. But the dilemma was that the very quality of the 'vintage' clogs dated them and so it would take 'mucho balls' to wear them. You see, there were two kinds of clogs being sold then. The excruciatingly ugly black dutch clogs that every one had and one slightly less ugly variation that some of the cooler chicks had. Mine was just not happening. But one Monday morning, I gathered up my insecurities and dusted off those clogs and strutted my stuff like I just bought them from Champs Elysee. Someone said 'Nice clogs" to me and my heart skipped a beat as I waited for the mocking laughter. there was none. I learned four important lessons during that period of my life: 1) You make the clothes and not the other way round, so let confidence always be your undergarment :) 2) Always, but always 'do you' - not everyone is going to get it, but you know, you're not running for president or anything so it's cool. Really, it is. 3) Make friends with a really good tailor and score yourself some free alterations 4) it's okay (kinda pretty cool actually) to be a little different and innovative.

Anyway, I saw these outrageously priced Tory Burch Clogs and it brought me full circle. I survived without them then, methinks I will make it now, n'est pas? :)

pp