Dress: Vintage, thrifted

Shoes: Mia

Sorry for the radioactive photo!  I have a lot of trouble getting properly exposed photos when I’m wearing a dark outfit.  I am really, really pale, and all my childhood photo albums are filled with photos of me glowing in the dark.  Still, this was the best photo of the dress (there is another on flickr, but while I look ok (only slightly radioactive) the dress is rather dark.  I get better photos outside, but I don’t have much of a backyard, and I live in a neighborhood with tons of foot traffic – sometimes I don’t feel like being stared at!

This dress is one of my favorite thrift store finds.  I rarely find decent vintage, but I do have a few stores that I visit which I think the pickers avoid.  This dress doesn’t have a lot of hanger appeal, but I love it!  I’m finding that dresses of this era (late 1970s?) suit me.

On to the topic of the day: Storing (and sorting) shoes.

I spent this weekend sorting and culling my shoe collection.  I tend to have a lot of shoes, mostly because I have a really hard time getting rid of any.  I still had shoes from 10 years ago, and I know I don’t wear them anymore!  I forced myself to get rid of 20 pairs, none of which had been worn in the past year, and some which were only worn once (I used to buy a lot of desperations shoes – shoes to match an outfit for one occasion, usually cheap shoes that I didn’t like.)  I’ve also, within the past 2 years, decided that I’m unwilling to suffer foot pain for my shoes.  I do like to wear heels, and I wear them almost every day.  This means that I can’t buy cheap shoes, but since I don’t really buy new clothes I just spend my wardrobe money on my shoes.  I thought I would share a photo of my shoe storage:

This is just one of those modular wire shelving systems.  Most of my shoes have stacked heels, and don’t fall through the mesh.  I store my flats at the bottom, with the second of every pair leaning up in the back.  I like this system because I can see what I have, and I tend to actually wear them all.  I used to keep them in my closet, but then I wore the same 2 pairs all the time.  I try not to keep anything on the floor of my closet, ever since I had a minor carpet beetle invasion in the house – I vacuum it several times a week!  I haven’t quite figured out good boot storage yet:

I store all my boots with rolled up magazines inside, so that they don’t fall over and crease.  And yes, that is a t-ball bat (you know, in case we hae any really tiny burglars!)  I have a lot of boots, because I wear them most of the time in the winter.  I wear the other shoes in the spring, summer, and fall.  I have very few pairs of sandals (and I had to send back the Seychelles I just got from 6pm – they were too big!)  I don’t wear sandals often… they just don’t go with my wardrobe very well.

Going through the shoes (and getting rid of a bunch) helped me to see where the holes are in my collection.  I do not, for instance, need any more black shoes (especially because I don’t wear them often in warm weather – I don’t care for the contrast.)  I would like a pair of casual oxford type shoes – I am seeing them worn with dresses quite often, and I think it would be nice to have a different type of flat.  I’m thinking of the Caley by Bass.

I like that it has oxford styling, but it isn’t as high cut as the traditional type.  I’m not interested in looking like I’m wearing men’s shoes, and some of the other styles remind me of jazz shoes (which I’ve already got quite enough of, thanks!)

I’m also a bit obsessed with this pair, by Poetic License:

But, they are from last season and seem to be sold out everywhere!  I can find the brown/black color, but it’s the blue with red stitching that I really love.  I might go ahead and buy the other color while I still can.  Wouldn’t they be lovely with a retro dress?  Again, they aren’t too high cut, which keeps them from looking too mannish to me.

Lately I’ve been using Pinterest to keep track of the pretty shoes I find, most of which I won’t buy.  If anyone is interested, the shoe pinboard is here.  I might also get a new pair of sandals for summer, flat ones to wear with maxi dresses, but I have yet to find any that I like.    I don’t know why Sandals don’t appeal to me!  A new pair of Mary janes is definitely in the cards, as my pair of black Mary janes is entirely too uncomfortable for wearing without tights.

I’m also obsessing a bit about what shoes to take on my trip to Italy (in 2 weeks!)  But… once I get my packing wardrobe planned that will be  a separate post.  I have yet to decide whether I’m doing me-made-march or not.  I will be in Italy for half the month, but perhaps wearing my handmade stuff might force me to pack a bit lighter!