Actually, the title of this post is a clever ploy to get more traffic. No, it’s not! It’s just that I’ve developed a bit of a foot fetish since arriving in Rome. Or rather, shoe fetish. I’ve always been into shoes but now I’m REALLY into shoes because the Italian women wear the most amazing shoes.
The Roman ladies know how to dress, I’ve said that already. But they also know how to accessorize with just a few statement pieces. The thing that used to irritate me in Australia was women who would wear a ring on every finger and a whole stack of cheap looking bangles on one arm. They’d top this off by wearing a number of necklaces. You know the look I mean – a Christmas tree of (probably cheap) jewellery. New Zealand gals don’t seem to have fallen into the “let’s wear all our jewellery in one go” mentality. Nor have the Italian women. Their jewellery usually consists of a simple pair of chandelier earrings and no other jewellery; or an elegant, long necklace.
But back to the shoes. The other thing Italian women do is use stunning, bejewelled shoes as a statement piece. They might be wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt but they’ll accessorize with a towering pair of colourful heels or a gorgeous pair of glittering sandals. At the Italian hairdresser last week, I looked down and spotted a beautiful pair of shoes on a woman who’d been around the block a few times – I reckon she was in her mid-60s – but she was dressed in three-quarter length, tight jeans, had a stunning figure and shoes I wanted to steal from her.
Not to be outdone in the shoe department was the hairdresser doing said woman’s hair. She sported unusual Roman leather flat-heeled thong things. Every day, I spot dozens of Italian ladies wearing fantastic shoes. I also note they always seem to have very well-toned, slim legs. How is it that the Italians are so slim? They seem to scoff pasta and pizza all the time, plus sweet pastries for breakfast. Not fair.
Now – what bejewelled shoes can I buy to wear on a New Zealand farm?!
August 30, 2011 at 4:24 am
omg
I have some shoes virtually like the hairdresser’s. They are not quite as tall and I don’t think the leg piece starts in the heel but is loose there. I never wear them because I have thought they were over the top.
But now with the blessing of non other than the celebrated italian and NZ shoe fetish team I realise the error of my ways.
Must find them out for summer, but remember no jewellery if I wear them.
In regards to jewellery I think some famous person said to always remove one thing before you walk outside (so as to avoid the over the top number of pieces). Last week I removed the 2nd ring as I walked down the street.
I had my hair cut at Just Cuts at Hornsby this month. The chap who cut my hair was from Just Cuts in Christchurch. He had already planned to return to Sydney after 8 years there when the quake struck.
August 30, 2011 at 6:42 am
Go ahead Irene, get those Roman leather numbers out and wear them with pride this summer! I was busy today putting on three sparkly bangles, then removed two of them. That famous person might have been Wallis Simpson – but not sure – my grandmother used to say the same thing.