I am wearing a pair of my mother's shoes that I recovered from her closet in Sydney this August. She bought these edouard jerrold wedges in 1975, when I was four years old. The pair pictured here are on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. My mother's pair have brown, pink, turquoise and cream stripes.
I look at my feet and flash back to being four, to my mother in flares with a bandanna in a triangle over her hair. She had not worn the shoes in at least 25 years, if not 30, but she loved them. She ocassionally pulled them out of the closet -- checking that they still fit, not quite offering to give them away to one fashion-obsessed teenager or another.
In sorting through all of her stuff, it was hard to give things away or throw them out. I certainly was not going to throw out this iconic pair of shoes.
They are a little dingy -- how does one clean velvet shoes? I had them repaired (the glue holding the uppers on the sole was crumbling). So now I can wear them. They don't even look out of place, considering the cyclical world of fashion.
2 comments:
What a treasure you have, not only the timeless shoes but to be able to hold on to some memories. I am sorry you have to sort through her items. I can't even imagine.
Don't know how to clean velvet.
Thanks, Corrine. I have many lovely things from my mother. And, for example, I think of her when I wear one of her multitude of scarves. (I use these more than the shoes.) She was an accessories hound. I'm not as bag-crazy as she was. Anyway, I think of her a lot, even a year and a half after her death.
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