Shoe-in

The results of the Great Shoe Clean-Up of 2009 are in.

The grand total of shoes owned pre-clean-up was a vaguely disappointing 92.  I'll admit I was kind of expecting to have broken the ton, but was not to be. 

And even less likely to be in the future as I have now thinned the ranks.

This is the group of automatic keepers:

49 in that group, plus 1 from the other group that was buried at the bottom of the pile so I didn't realise they were there until I sorted through the second group.  So, 50 automatic keepers.

This is the second group of nos and maybes:

43 in the photo, 42 in the pile after the boots referred to above were extracted. 

Do you notice a particular theme going on up there?  That in the keepers pile are a wide variety of colours, while in the maybe pile there's a lot of black.  It's mainly because the maybe pile contained a lot of old shoes from my early working life when I was (a) required to wear suits to work and wore more conservative shoes; (b) only just really getting into the shoe thing; and (c) poorer and therefore tended towards more practical everyday wear instead of shoes that wouldn't go with everything.  These days it's really rather rare for me to buy black shoes.  They bore me, really.

Anyway, those nos and maybes broke down into a few sub-groups:

11 that were broken or worn to death beyond repair

2 repaired unsatisfactorily

7 that never really fitted correctly or were otherwise rarely if ever worn

And the rest that were either just old, completely out of fashion, in need of a litle repair or forgotten about.

From this group of 42 I kept 12 pairs (including 3 to be repaired), threw away 17 pairs and am sending the rest to the op shop.

I was fairly, but not totally ruthless in the clean-out.  I kept my old cowboy boots that I wore to death through years of high school and uni and which have been re-heeled about 75 times, but which fit my feet like the proverbial glove.  The chances of me wearing them again are small, but it took so long to find them and I loved them so much there's no way I'm giving them up.  And I also kept my purple patent D&G shoes with the fluted heel even though one of the heels snapped in half a while back (after several years of wear, I must add) because they're still a lovely pair of shoes and it just doesn't feel right to get rid of them yet.  But aside from that it was toss, toss, give-away, give-away.

So I'm left with 62 pairs of shoes and boots.  Which don't all fit into the wardrobe neatly, unfortunately, though after the sort out I can at least find them all again and see what I actually have, which was becoming something of a problem before.

Still too many?  Don't be silly, there's no such thing provided they're not broken or worn to death.

Comments

[Stomper Girl]

92 x 2 = 184, I guessed 188 I was awesomely close.

[Uli]

Very close!

[laslig]

You know, I have a separate room just for books. Have you considered a separate room just for shoes? That way both you and the shoes will be more comfortable, and you will be able to a) remember what you have, and b) keep a closer eye on the relative wear of said shoes. With the additional benefit of c) if you notice gaps (either stylistic or physical), you will know exactly what kind of shopping you need to do...

[Carole]

I bow down to you. At last count I only have about 70.

[freya]

It's just a shame we don't have the same shoe size.
then I would never have to buy shoes again.