Do you remember the time before nude shoes? I do. I long for that time, with every fibre of my being. Please, for the love of God, can we go back to the time Before Nude Shoes?!
Obviously nude shoes have existed for eons. Centuries. Well, at least, since about the Forties. Up until recently, they were only worn by posh, expensive looking women, who team them with smart skirt suits, blow-dried hair and *gasp* naturally tanned legs, clicking their heels as they march around doing their posh, expensive looking business. The kind of women who shop in LK Bennett, basically. Usually over forty, these are career women, ladies who think nothing of dropping £200 on a shoe that looks like you have no shoes on. The kind of women who think a kitten heel actually has a reason for existing.
But then one of those women only went and made herself stupidlymegafamous, didn’t she?
Hooked herself a Prince Charming and a guaranteed slot on the front of the Daily Fail until further notice. For as far as the eye could see, it was just Kate Middleton, wearing something navy/with gold buttons/from Zara, always accessorised with nude shoes…
I do blame those blasted Middletons and their oh-so-pally shoe-sharing club. Nothing wrong with sharing accessories, especially between girlfriends – but with your Mum? No matter how stylish your madre might be, that’s never gonna be cool.
However when K-Mid and co all started stepping out in nude shoes, they opened one hell of a Pandora’s box. I must have missed the memo, but from that day forth, wearing nude shoes became something of a British national pastime. Whether it’s at the races, going to work or simply falling out of Sugarhut, nude shoes are the only shoes to be had, apparently. If you believe certain tabloids and trashy fash mags, anyway – there seems to be some kind of editorial policy only to publish pics of slebs in nude shoes at the moment. Fashion journos have also mislaid their footwear vocabulary too, using that phrase and that phrase alone to describe these beasts. The adjectives ‘tan’ ‘pale pink’ ‘neutral’ ‘beige’ and even that old chestnut ‘greige’ are all
sooooooo last seeeeason it hurts.
It seems everyone has fallen under this bizarre spell. By the time it got to Zara ‘tounge stud’ Phillips’ wedding a few weeks back, the royals were all at it. Someone had clearly noted on the invites; ‘dress code: formalwear (except if you are a Z-list soapstar/popstar, in which case anything goes) hat, and regulation nude shoes’. Even Princess Anne was at it! (I met her once. It’s weird meeting a royal in the flesh, you want to press their nose just to check they aren’t just someone wearing one of those paper masks with the eyes cut out. I didn’t though, don’t worry.)
Thankfully HRH The Queen, style icon to the masses, has not yet succombed. She generally likes to co-ordinate her stillies with the shift dress/jacket combo of the day, so until she starts wearing insipid beige ensembles, we’re safe.
God knows what Princess Anne was up to though. Striving for the leg lengthening properties that one can only get from one’s noood shoooes? I think not.
On that note, let’s talk about fake tan, ladies. Supposedly – and I use that word lightly – nude shoes are supposed to create the optical illusion that your legs are in fact ridiculously long, and we’ve just never noticed because goshdarnit you’ve had black shoes on ruining the effect this whole time. However: If you are a member of the school of bronzing, then aren’t nude shoes something of an oxymoron? You know how brides often get their wedding shoes dyed to match their dress; is this the next logical step for nude shoes? Skintone matched shoes? *shudders at thought*
Ultimately, this whole nude shoe nonsense is a pile of footwear fantasy that is boring the pants off me. Where are the sparkly, feathery, colourful, mental shoes that us girls are meant to love? (If every natty greetings card shop is to be believed). All girls think about is shoes, isn’t that right – our tiny brains are filled with them! We just love shoes! *squeals in a SATC-type fashion frenzy*
Even if that was true, why in hell’s name, as a nation, are boring ourselves by wearing the blandest of bland shoes?! It’s the weirdest en masse foot fetish I’ve ever seen. Zzz-tastic. No-one’s even actually nude. Boring.
At the end of the day, your legs don’t look like they suddenly have extra flesh at the end of them – they just look like you are wearing nude bloody shoes! It’s time for us to come to our senses, and for nude shoes *last time I am ever writing that phrase* to bugger off back to LK Bennett, where they belong.
Comments