100 shoes in 100 days

An unexpected side-effect of my shoe purge challenge is that I am making some great new acquaintances. Have slowly started to put up items for “adoption” I.e. for sale online. One of the channels I’ve been using is a local Facebook group on Lidingö. The interesting thing about using a Facebook group is that you get a sneak peek into the  life of the person you are doing business with and even get to veg them on the basis of whether you have any friends in common. Last night I made a new maybe-friend. Sold a pair of green suede Gucci loafers from a sample collection to the friend of a friend and a friend of another friend. We chatted, we talked about shoes, home decor and people we knew and it really felt more like a  social event than a transaction.

Shoe charity fund is now up to 1800 SEK with more (hopefully) to come.

Today I made another brilliant choice of shoes for a client workshop. 10 cm Calvin Klein sandals, albeit with a decent wedge. As my dear work buddy V said at about 4.30 “your feet look like they are suffering a little now…”. No pain no gain!

Sunday. Mothers Day. After taking Thing 2 to football/soccer school it’s off to the garden center where we loaded the car with 4 sacks of soil, two sacks of wood chips and a sack of manure for good measure.

Our garden is finally getting a little TLC today and actually it’s kind of relaxing to dig around so it works out well for both of us. Did I mention the kids don’t really want to help? Which means I get a little time alone – happy Mother’s Day to me!!!

Chipie make these amazing slip on sneakers that have a very faint perfume. Perfect for bare feet in summer!

Shoes come and go, and if they sell out they are replaced by something new. Or, if they are enough of a best seller, they quietly become classics and continue to be  produced season on season.

And then there are shoes that sell out worldwide in an instant. That are hyped and shown in fashion magazines and ads and are impossible for mere mortals to get their hands on.

Meet Esme by Jimmy Choo. Esme has sold out in every reasonable size in every boutique and online store I have been able to find (and I´m pretty good at finding). But as if by magic, destiny or fairydyst; one pair in the right size was waiting for me at NK as I walked past the shoe department with Thing 2. Just one. In the whole world (well nearly anyway). It could only be fate, right?

Oh, and I totally get that this perhaps doesn´t quite fill the prerequisites for the shoe-challenge. Including the fact that I´m adding a new pair rather that getting rid of old ones. Also, outraged and shocked voices might be raised at my rampant consumerism. So to counterbalance all of this nonsense, I am now wearing the most down to earth pair of shoes in the whole world. 

 

What do you do the day after euphoric live bombing with all your fantastic colleagues as a result of a very successful annual reports seminar? Get up, get dressed and go back to the clients who don’t understand that you’ve had “more pressing” matters to tend to for a while.

Also dust off a pair of lovely LK Bennet pumps that are really hard for even me to walk in. But I don’t need to walk much today, or do I?

Big seminar today on Annual Reporting. Yes I know it sounds a bit like having teeth pulled. But having stage-time with decisionmakers from some of Swedens largest companies together with colleagues from Comprend and Hallvarsson & Halvarsson is a great honour.

Those that know me well will also know that I suffer from a mild version of dyscalculia. That is to say that I can´t count. No I mean I really can´t. Never learned long and short division but rather I managed to somehow fake my way through third grade and above on luck and then opened the arrival of the pocket calculator.

Today I proudly spoke to 150 or so CFO´s, CEO´s and IR/CSR executives with statistics on trends within digital annual reporting (yes numbers and graphs about numbers and graphs).

On my feet were a pair of cheap as chips black heels purchased about 10 years ago after two bottles or so of champagne on a weekend in Luxembourg to visit little sister.

 

 

London shoes again.

I wanted to wear a heel today as am still rather afraid summer proper will roll around before I´ve gone through them all, and heels and the Swedish outback do NOT mix. Also didn´t want to wear too much of a heel as I still have a bit of a blister on my little toe from Saturdays´ extravagance.

Enter dancing shoes. Very 1940´s; black suede and leather Mary Janes. Sturdy 5 cm heel and sensible buckle to keep them firmly in place. As I wore heels pretty much every day during my London years, it was important to have something really simple to fall back on.

I was telling a friend that the reason I aquired so many shoes in London that we had very low running costs. I.e. high disposible income. I realise though that it was more than that. I had all the time in the world. Would frequently spend a whole saturday roaming around Chelsea streets. No wonder about 50% of contents of my closet still comes from that time.

 

 

Busy preparing for a big seminar on Thursday where I’m a speaker on trends and best practice in digital annual reports. Mixing it up with flats again. Super-fake snakeskin with polka dots from Zara Basic.

Handed down from my little sister. Actually swiped from a bag of cast-offs that we’re going to recycling.

Mixed feelings?

 

After a day of repose yesterday I´m back in heels.

Patent leather and horse-bit again. With a signature block heel and classic shape.

I accidentally bought these a size too big. Gucci was having a bit sample sale in a basement off of Brick Lane. Being presented with last seasons’ classics at a fraction of the price makes the experience all about grab and go and not so much about try on and think.

In hindsight a very good accident though as they now fit me absolutely perfectly and still look pretty smart.

Have started purging my closet of stuff tat I know for a fact I won´t bring myself to wear. All coming to www.usedby.com

Out shopping with Thing 1 and Thing 2 today. Tired and sore from last night so would really rather do nothing at all but the minions clearly did´t get that message. Also, they have outgrown pretty much all of their clothes and have been asking for weeks to go so I´m putting on a brave mommy face.

Also putting on a pair of next-to-slippers. LK Bennet ballerinas in gold rattan with a bow. I have been about to get rid of these for years as they are really about to fall apart. Also it´s a little weird that you can see my toenails through the shoe. But I keep stopping myself. And wearing them “one last time” again.

Last night´s fabulous Gucci heels were really a last time. Today they have made their way onto my online wardrobe at Usedby.com. Pay it a visit!

 

Have spent the day at Skansen with little K’s so white vans were on again.

Shoe redemption comes in the form of a dinner date with Mr K, celebrating a god friends 40th.

Gucci on my feet again. Satin black open toes with the signature horse-bit in bling. Love, love, love these and am totally going to ignore the fact that they are now half a size too small.

Taxi please!