Shoe Shopping

I’ve been shoe shopping today, the best kind of shoe shopping. Price was no concern. Neither was heel height nor the fact that I haven’t worn high heels in a decade. I have been shopping online for a shoe for my newest heroine. It’s not a Cinderella shoe, but it is important.

You see my heroine Bri (Briallen  Kendrick) is a jeans and boots girl. The most important thing in her life is Fantastica, the pet therapy farm she and her sister, Rica, own. Bri works with the animals and kids, and Rica is the public face of Fantastica, attending the fundraisers, speaking in the videos, and interacting with contributors. But Drew Bellamy has a seven figure check for Fantastica. There is one catch: his presenting it is contingent on Bri’s attending a charity ball. Rica, who has bullied her sister into attending the gala, is an experienced shopper at Another Dance, a consignment shop. She found Bri a killer dress, and she’s narrowed the shoes to two. She insists that Bri make the final choice. Bri and I are having a difficult time. She's trying to figure out a way to wear her boots, and I'm trying to figure out a way she can wear both of Rica's finds.

Here are her choices.

Alexander McQueen
$1765

Jimmy Choo
$895

I must admit I had great fun shoe shopping for my character.  I even got my sister and my best friend involved. Why is it that women bond over shoes? I remember an extended discussion of shoes on The Eloisa James Bulletin Board that prompted this poem:

The Lay of the Shoe-Scorning Woman

(with apologies to Sir Walter Scott)


Breathes there a woman with heart so dead 
Who never to herself hath said,
These are my own, the shoes I crave!
Whose credit cards have never burned
As charges through machines have churned,
From wandering through shoe shops to save.
If such there breathe, go, mark her well;
For her no sisters’ voices swell.
High though her status, smart her game,
Boundless her closet as wish can claim,
Despite those gowns and bags and jeans,
This wretch can be no fashion queen. 
Living, shall forfeit sisterhood,
And, fading surely, as she should,
Shall join the earth on which she trod,
Unwept, unnatural, and ill-shod.

Are you a shoe-shoppin’ fool? Which shoe do you think Bri should choose? If you are a writer, do you shop for your characters? If you are a reader, are clothing details important to you?