How we lose perspective
We went shopping recently, because I needed a pair of shoes that I could wear with business-type clothes. (I only had one pair, and since that pair literally made me feet bleed the last time I wore them for an hour, I was determined to replace them.) I’m probably one of the few women out there that will say this, but I hate shoe shopping. Hate it. Finding a single pair of shoes that fits me usually involves hitting every single shoe store & department store in one or more malls. That’s if I’m lucky, and don’t have to go to two or three malls plus an outlet store.
So to me, even though I look at literally hundreds and hundreds of shoes, there aren’t many pairs of shoes out there that will fit. I realized recently that I have the best shot at finding something that fits me if I completely ignore price. This background is to explain how I got to this point:
We were at store number 8 or so (Neiman Marcus) and I couldn’t find any shoes in my size that would go with business clothes to even try on. I picked up a sandal at random to show my husband, telling him that in addition to white, THIS color would be ok too, when I noticed the price: $495 on sale. He started saying how that was outrageous (and I agree) and that he would never pay that much for a pair of shoes, unless they were going to last him 20 years. I actually paused and said, well, I don’t know, I might pay that much if I had the extra money and they fit AND looked good.
That’s exactly how people lose perspective: perceived scarcity and/or value for the money. To me a pair of shoes that actually fits is worth quite a bit, so much so that I didn’t completely rule out a $495 pair of shoes out of hand. In reality, it would probably be cheaper for me to find a cobbler somewhere in the world to hand make me a pair of shoes.
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August 4th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Agreed…$500 is a bit much for a pair of shoes unless they are the only pair of shoes you are going to wear for the rest of your life. But putting it another way, if you wore those shoes every single day (365 days a year), they’d only cost $1.26 per wear at the end :)
Still, my max is about $100 for shoes, maybe even $150 for a good pair of boots… Because you still have to factor in buying those heel grips, heel insoles, and heel grip pads for the bottom of the shoes.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I’ve been thinking for sometime that the shortage of wearable, sane, stylish items for adult women with jobs almost appears to be some kind of conspiracy.
Men would laugh out loud at this, of course, because everywhere they look, they see malls overflowing with alleged “women’s” apparel. Little do they know what a tiny percentage of what’s there makes any sense for women’s real lives.
I’ve had these shopping trips from hell, too. Here’s what I do:
1) Try on shoes at the mall and get a fix on what size you wear in three or four brands. Try Clark’s, Aerosoles, Easy Spirit, Naturilizer, and Life Stride.
2) Never deviate from these favorite brands to keep the sizing consistent.
3) Actually buy the shoes themselves from Zappos.com (shipping often free) which has a much better selection.
Do not pay $500. The shoes won’t be THAT great or last THAT long, and you’ll always feel cheated. That’s bad for you, which apparently is what manufacturers want…but you don’t.