Shoe Sale! (Or: Shadowing Carrie Bradshaw)

If you're a single gal in her thirties, living in New York, you will inevitably have moments when you feel -- for better or worse -- that you're shadowing Carrie Bradshaw. Showing up for the first minute of the semi-annual Manolo Blahnik sale is one of them.

At 10:30 this morning, when I arrived at the pocket-sized shop on W. 54th, the line at the door was perhaps 20 deep. At 10:40, the doorman began spoonfeeding us into the store. Verrrry slowly. One by one. Still, it filled quickly, and flustered the gentle staff. "Oh! Oh!" the Italian sales manager shouted with pitch-perfect distress. "Eet's too crowed een here! Mr Toussaint! Mr. tousSAINT! PLEEZ do not let anyone else EEN!"

Now, the thing to know about Manolo Blahniks is that they're shoe lovers' shoes: Beautiful works of art that just happen to adorn your feet. Blahnik himself (brilliant, colorful, exuberantly odd) is an unabashed shoe fetishist, with zero interest in other forms of fashion. "I don't like dresses. I don't like hats. I only like shoes," he told Michael Specter in a wonderful interview during this year's New Yorker Festival. And this explains a lot about his work: Divinely designed, lovingly crafted and absurdly priced ... I mean, you really need to live in New York quite a long time before you can imagine paying that much for a pair of shoes.  

Which brings me back to the sale. The sale!! I was surrounded by scads of pumps, flats and boots at 30% off, and wouldn't you know it? Isn't it always the way? I fell head over heels with the shoes in the window: The bright red, bejeweled, 3-1/2-inch heel, peep-toe, satin d'Orsay pumps, which were utter perfection and distinctly not on sale.

As I slipped them on, and floated over to the full-length mirror -- mentally preparing to pay what used to be a month's rent in San Francisco** for a pair of shoes I obviously needed -- I wondered briefly about who I'd become. What ever happened to my pre-New York, pre-Sex & the City self ... the one who lusted after mountain bike shocks and ski racks, and went hiking on the weekends? I suspect she's still in here somewhere ... that I will someday move back to the west coast -- or Colorado, or the Alps, or Africa, for that matter -- and giggle at my current Manhattan ways.

But for now, I'm shadowing Carrie Bradshaw. And I'll settle for a metaphorical hike: across town, for dinner -- on a Tuesday, no less -- in my beautiful, bright-red shoes.

** Note: My rent in San Francisco was always rather cheap. Pre-dot-com-era cheap. I'm not that far gone ...