ALSO BY PATRICIA MORRISROE
Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia
Mapplethorpe: A Biography
GOTHAM BOOKS
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Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Morrisroe
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Parts of “Love on a Shoestring” previously appeared in Vogue.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Morrisroe, Patricia, 1951–
9 1/2 narrow : my life in shoes / Patricia Morrisroe.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-698-19111-2
1. Women's shoes—Social aspects. 2. Morrisroe, Patricia, 1951—Aesthetics. 3. Morrisroe, Patricia, 1951– —Knowledge—Fashion. 4. Journalists—United States—Biography. I. Title. II. Title: Nine and a half narrow.
GT2130.M674 2015
391.4'13082—dc23
2014043028
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.
Version_1
For my mother, who could never find shoes that fit but who got the prince anyway.
Contents
Also by Patricia Morrisroe
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Introduction
Chapter 1 White Mary Janes
Chapter 2 The Dog Ate My Mules
Chapter 3 The Killer Podiatrist
Chapter 4 Wedgies
Chapter 5 Beatle Boots
Chapter 6 A Ghillie Out of Water
Chapter 7 A Bully in Brogues
Chapter 8 To Oz and Back
Chapter 9 Love on a Shoestring
Chapter 10 The Oxford Boys
Chapter 11 The Blahnik-Puma Wedding
Chapter 12 Girlfriend Shoes
Chapter 13 Go-Go Boots
Chapter 14 In the Heights
Chapter 15 A Pain in the Heel
Chapter 16 Feetfirst
Chapter 17 Pilgrim’s Progress
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
The names of some of the persons included in this memoir have been changed.
Introduction
Last month I was killing time before a dentist’s appointment when I wandered into a “shoe event” at Bergdorf Goodman. Dozens of women were teetering on five-inch heels and drinking champagne. Shoe boxes were everywhere. I spotted a pair of studded black boots that I didn’t need and couldn’t afford, but after inhaling the scent of shoe lust—a carnal blend of animal hides with a splash of insanity—I flagged the nearest salesperson.
“Is your name on the list?” he asked. A list for what? Boots? But apparently there was a list, and I was not on it. As a consolation prize, he offered me champagne, but I didn’t want champagne. I wanted the boots. The salesman seemed genuinely perplexed by my inability to grasp the obvious. The boots were already “pre-sold.” Did I actually expect to waltz into the store in early September and come away with a pair of highly coveted fall boots that other customers had been plotting to acquire since the previous spring?
I thanked him and gathered my things while he checked out my bag and shoes.
Sensing that he might be losing a potential customer, he motioned me closer. “Maybe I can do something,” he whispered. “I’ll see what’s in the back room.” He zigzagged around the shoe boxes and disappeared. He was gone so long, it gave me plenty of time to wonder if the back room was so far back it was now in New Jersey. When he returned, he was out of breath. “I was saving these for a celebrity,” he said, “but she never showed up.” The boots were a size 8½. I’d asked for a 9½.
“They run large,” he explained, “and I see that you have very narrow feet, so they might fit.”
They didn’t, although that didn’t stop me from parading around in them, hoping they’d conform to my feet through sheer force of will. As I circled the room, I attracted the attention of several tipsy women, who were heading for the escalator with shopping bags filled with shoe boxes. They spotted the boots and began to follow me.
“Unfortunately, they’re too short,” I told the salesman.
He gave me the name of an elite shoe repair shop that could stretch them.
“And they’re too wide.”
“I can get you some insoles.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid they don’t fit.”
The women gazed down at my poor pathetic feet, the feet that couldn’t fit into the boots a celebrity had almost wanted. I could feel their pity and, it must be said, their disgust. I didn’t have a pedicure, which made me the outlier in a room of perfectly painted toenails. I would never get the boots or the prince because in a weird twist on Cinderella, my feet were both too slender and too large.
We’re living in the Shoe Age, when women have determined that there is nothing more fulfilling, more thrilling than a pair of head-turning, sole-killing “statement” heels. While not a new phenomenon—women have always been shoe-obsessed—we’ve entered an era when shoes have not only become the most important fashion accessory but also the most profitable item in high-end department stores. Conquering territory that once belonged to designer clothes, shoes are now displayed in the equivalent of footwear museums. In 2007, Saks Fifth Avenue was one of the first to jump on the trend when it turned its eighth floor into a shoe emporium so enormous it needed its own ZIP code—10022-SHOE. Five years later, it felt cramped, so Saks added another 7,000 square feet, including on-site shoe repair. Not to be outdone, Barneys created a 22,000-square-foot shoe department that spanned the whole fifth floor, with Italian marble walls, glass and ebony wood tables, and iPad stations. Macy’s, with 63,000 square feet containing nearly 300,000 pairs of shoes, claims to be the largest shoe department in the entire world, but Harrods in London and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong are fast catching up.
Department stores need to do everything they can to entice shoppers, who can easily click on a retail website, such as Net-A-Porter, and have Christian Louboutin’s Follies Resille five-inch pumps “crafted from gold leather and glitter-finished fishnet” overnighted to their homes. If their size is sold out, they can go on any number of social commerce websites and locate them in London, Singapore, or Berlin. The e-tailer Yoox started an online shoe store, Shoescribe, after it discovered that sales of shoes far outpaced those of any other items.
Where once viewed as secondary to handbags, shoes are increasingly essential to a designer’s brand. In addition to being highly lucrative, they expose new customers to a designer’s re
ady-to-wear business, as well as frequently dictating the look of fashion shows. When heels go up, hemlines do too; when they go down, dresses become looser, pants slouchier. With prices for designer clothes increasingly out of reach, shoes may feel like a relative bargain, and with clothes becoming more casual, they add an element of sophistication. Shoes are fun to shop for. They don’t require you to enter a dressing room and stare at your cellulite under unflattering light. Feet may develop bunions and corns, but they’ll never get fat, and they’ll still look beautiful—in the right shoes.
Sex and the City brought “shoe porn” to the masses. From 1998 to 2004, Sarah Jessica Parker, as the shoe-obsessed Carrie, introduced TV audiences to such high-end designers as Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin. “Manolos” became so popular that 37 percent of women surveyed in a Women’s Wear Daily poll claimed they’d bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in exchange for a lifetime supply of them. In the fall of 2014, Parker introduced her own line of footwear, SJP, which included a strappy spike named the Carrie.
By the time I reached the dentist’s office, I couldn’t stop thinking about shoes. For a brief moment, I even thought about Imelda Marcos, who, after fleeing the Philippines with her dictator husband, left a cache of her famous designer high heels behind. Termites invaded the presidential palace and ate them. Then I began thinking about Bernie Madoff, whose possessions were sent to the auction block to help compensate his victims. What captured the public’s imagination was not his collection of Patek Philippe watches, or his wife’s 10-karat emerald-cut diamond, or the Steinway grand piano, or the cow-shaped creamer. It was the 250 pairs of handmade Belgian loafers in the “Mr. Casual” style. The press had a field day with headlines such as WALK A DAY IN BERNIE MADOFF’S SHOES. Not that any would want to, since he was serving 150 years in prison, but the shoes came to symbolize Madoff’s improbable journey from prominent investment advisor to notorious financial swindler.
Marie Antoinette, whose reputation for extravagance earned her the title Madame Déficit, bought shoes by the hundreds. The queen’s trip to the guillotine is rife with shoe imagery. During her escape from the storming of the Tuileries Palace, she lost a delicate high-heeled slipper with ruched ribbon trim that is now in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. She wore two-inch plum-black mules to her beheading. Her final words, “Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it,” were uttered to the executioner after she accidentally stepped on his foot. More recently, the veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin was killed in Syria when she returned to a building to retrieve her shoes during a rocket attack. In keeping with local customs, she’d removed them before entering.
Shoes not only tell stories but are also thought to indicate character. In 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice toured Wiesbaden Army Airfield in a pair of black stiletto boots that the Washington Post’s fashion editor, Robin Givhan, viewed as a refreshing demonstration of power, sex, and toughness. Later that year, Rice was roundly criticized for going shoe shopping at the Fifth Avenue Ferragamo immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Sarah Palin, in her debut as vice presidential candidate, chose a pair of bright-red, high-heeled Double Dare pumps by Naughty Monkey, a brand that usually caters to twenty-year-old club kids. If Palin was viewed as inappropriately sexy, Representative Michele Bachmann, in her 2012 presidential run, was often photographed in dowdy open-toed orthopedic-style sandals paired with pantyhose. She claimed high heels triggered her migraines, which set off a whole flurry of stories about how she’d deal with the stress of the presidency. Michelle Obama, famous for her chic mix of high and low, wore a pair of relatively affordable J. Crew pumps to the 2013 Inauguration Day festivities. The shoes offset the expensive made-to-order Thom Browne coat, signaling that she was both glamorous and grounded.
Shoes play an important role in fairy tales, largely due to their sexual connotations. To Freud, they symbolized the vagina, with the foot representing male and female castration anxieties. When Cinderella slides her foot into the smooth glass slipper, she is signaling to the prince that they will live happily ever after, at least in the bedroom.
Even in real life, shoes have figured prominently in courtship and marriage rituals. In some countries, the father of the bride presented the groom with his daughter’s shoes to symbolize the transfer of authority. When placed on the husband’s side of the wedding bed, the bride’s shoe signified ownership and fostered fertility. People still tie old shoes to the bumper of a newlywed’s car as a way of wishing good luck.
Our language is filled with shoe references. If something is very soothing and familiar, it’s as “comforting as an old shoe.” If we assume someone else’s responsibilities, we’re “stepping into his shoes.” When we grow fearful, we “wait for the other shoe to drop.” When someone experiences a spate of bad luck, we tell ourselves that we “wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.” In the war against terrorism, we even have a new term: shoe bomber.
From crocheted booties to orthopedic brogues, shoes mark important rites of passage, reminding us of both the good and bad times—the road not taken, the prince not caught, the missed opportunities, the dancing, the traveling, the fun. While I can’t always recall the dresses or coats I wore on various occasions, I have a vivid memory of the white Mary Janes that represented my first shoe “crush”; the confirmation wedgies that celebrated my entrance to adulthood; the red patent-leather Puma sneakers my husband sported on our first date; the gray ostrich flats I wore to a girlfriend’s funeral; the New Balance sneakers I bought my elderly mother, who was losing her balance and was too proud to use a cane.
This is my shoe story, but it could just as easily be yours. So kick off your heels, put up your feet, and for the next few hours, walk with me.
1
White Mary Janes
It was the summer of 1961. Kennedy was in the White House, I was in church, and Hannah Howard was in a pair of white Mary Janes. Hannah was the prettiest girl in my school. She had long platinum hair, bright-blue eyes, and a Hollywood pedigree, a rarity in Andover, Massachusetts, where Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was the town’s biggest celebrity. Hannah’s mother was Priscilla Lane, who had starred in dozens of movies, including The Roaring Twenties, with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, and Arsenic and Old Lace, with Cary Grant. Priscilla Lane, by then Mrs. Howard, had also been my Brownie leader and looked so striking in her uniform that I never missed a troop meeting and briefly considered a military career.
Whenever Hannah and Mrs. Howard walked up to the Communion rail, even the most devout churchgoers put down their missals and gawked. I was among the worst offenders. On that particular Sunday, I kept staring at their outfits as I inched my way toward the altar rail. They were in the line opposite me, so I had an especially good view. Suddenly, I felt a sharp poke in my back. It was my mother, and I knew exactly what the poke meant: You stop right now! You’re in church! But I couldn’t stop because I’d already fallen in love with Hannah’s white Mary Janes.
In hindsight, I realize I was infatuated not so much with the shoes but with the concept of Hollywood perfection viewed through the eyes of a ten-year-old. Though my mother was blond and very pretty, she wasn’t a movie star, and nobody would ever mistake me for a movie star’s daughter. Instead of long platinum hair, I had a brunette pixie cut that clung to my head like an upside-down artichoke, and I was tall, skinny, and so pale my mother kept pressing me to “get some color.” When the neighborhood kids played cowboys and Indians, I was usually cast as the English princess, whose sole responsibility was sitting in a claustrophobic teepee, waiting for the cowboys to rescue me. Usually, they were too busy shooting toy guns and shouting racist comments at the Indians to remember they’d left “Princess Pale Skin” behind.
I couldn’t imagine Hannah wasting her precious youth in an overheated teepee. She was probably a regular at Disneyland, where her family received preferential treatment through her mother’s Hollywo
od connections. I knew that envy was a sin, but I wanted to be Hannah Howard. I immediately felt guilty for not thinking more spiritual thoughts, especially with Father Smith holding the Host in front of my face. As I returned to my pew, I tried to extricate the sticky wafer from the roof of my mouth, while praying to be a better person. It was then I experienced an epiphany. While not spiritual or particularly profound, it resonated with me. I couldn’t walk in Hannah’s shoes, but I could, if my mother agreed, own the same pair.
“White shoes?” my mother said as we drove home from church. “Are you crazy? They’re going to get filthy and then what will you do?”
“Clean them.”
“They’ll never look the same. You’ve had some crazy ideas but white shoes, well, that’s the craziest. Just you wait. Your father is going to have plenty to say about that.”
My father worked in finance, first as a bank examiner, and then in the mortgage department at the Arlington Trust Company, where everybody said he was the nicest man they’d ever met. Despite his outgoing personality during business hours, he was a naturally reticent person who treasured his brief moments of privacy. One of his greatest pleasures was reading The Boston Globe and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, which he’d focus on so intensely he seemed to go into a trance. His mother had died when he was four, and since my grandfather, who worked for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, couldn’t take care of seven children, the family was split up. Depending on their ages, some stayed with relatives or were sent away to school. My father and his older brother, Joe, wound up with their aunt, a Dominican nun who lived in a nearby convent. When they turned seven, they attended a strict all-boys Catholic school, where they joined other students who’d been orphaned or whose parents couldn’t keep them at home. As a form of survival, my father had learned from an early age that books and newspapers were powerful tools of escape. Raised not to whine or complain, he was stoic to a fault. If anyone ever asked how he was, he’d always give the same answer: “I’m fine.”
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