Heels: My Epic Struggle Against Pointy Inanimate Objects

My Piperlime gift card fashion victory has thus far afforded me hours of entertainment.  (Yes, I am crowing over my victory.  It's not often I win stuff, so just let me run a victory lap for this one, and I'll be done with it.)  I have ordered several thing from dear Piperlime, -- fyi: Piperlime's customer service really is top-notch, despite my criticisms of their product selection -- and I got the chance to play around with many brands.  My primary focus was finding heels I actually wanted to wear.  Being just shy of 5'9 and a teensy bit gangly does present a certain challenge in professional and sexy footwear.  You just cannot wear flats with everything, and I would like to branch out into things other than fancy Diesels and Doc Martens' menswear.  So I did order the Pour la Victoire black heels as pictured below:

They were pretty, if not really up to the quality I thought should be present in $200 black leather heels.  The crux  is, that heels may make me an Amazon, but they improve outfits and make you feel sexy, yes?  I may be the exception to the rule but I cannot feel sexy in shoes that make me feel as though I am mere seconds away from either snapping the heels off my twig-like support or collapsing into a very unflattering pile of fashion shame.  Literal stability is necessary in making me feel confident, and without actual stable foundations I feel more like this:

In case you can't tell, which is entirely possible since drawing is a skill that proves to be beyond me, this is a cartoon of a cat stranded on a box in a tempestuous sea, because, of course, cats are notorious for being sticklers for texture, dryness, and proper stability, though I'm not sure how effective my cartoon is if I feel the need to spell it out.  Whatever, I'm not trying to make a living as a cartoonist, so judge me kindly.  The point being that the little black patent shoes made me feel like this cat looks...so a big fat no to those.

Anyhoodle, I did manage to find these wonderful shoes by Seychelles:

I have worn these, in real life, three times so far because whatever genius designed these shoes realized that setting the heels closer in toward the center increases feeling of stability, so I can stalk around feeling like I am not about to buckle in on myself in a magnificent architectural failure, but instead feel as though I am as spindly and delicate as the Eiffel Tower.  So yeah, Seychelles.  

P.S. I need chocolate leggings to go with a shorter dress, and I have no idea where to get good ones.  Leggings horrify me a bit, so I need advice. Give it up and I will be eternally grateful.  

2nd Letter to Piperlime: The Black Heel

Dear Piperlime,

Now I don't want to bite the hand that gives me gift cards, but I am trying to heal our relationship and I hear that communication is key.  I see you going down a dark path, and I want to help out before it's too late.   

Here's the deal: I want to get a more professional wardrobe but one that actually looks like me and not like I'm an extra in Working Girl, and step number one is heels.  I am very flexible with colors and patterns even, since I like shoes that pop.  I have only three caveats for heels:

1. Heel height.  I am already 5'9 so high heels are not my friend: they throw me off balance like a drunk stilt-walker and I have no particular desire to be 6'1, thank you. 
2. Chunky heels or platforms also are an absolute no; the whole point of heels is to look delicate and to push out the right curves in the right direction, so clomping around on hoofs would defeat the whole purpose and sacrifice of making myself even more Amazonian. 
3. ...1/2, leather and good quality.  I want my feet to have sensation left in them at the end of the day, and I wear shoes for years if I like them. 

Piperlime, that's not asking too much, right?  I'm a pretty easy customer, aren't I?  Why, then, in your selection of 78 low to mid heels, almost all of them are bland neutrals?  I see you are in denial, you can't believe you could have allowed that to happen to your product selection.  Allow me to present my case: out of that 78, only 9 are something other than neutral colors.  And do you need me to tell you what those 9 shoes are like?  Stop being childish, I don't like this any more than you do, so you can quit rolling your eyes.  You need to face the truth if this is going to change.  2 shoes are very underwhelming heels of actual color (red and yellow if you are curious), 5 are animal print (yes, I know, animal print heels are adorable, but I cannot wear animal print anything without looking like I'm dressing up as a hooker for Halloween.  How about some variety?), and 2 look like what you would see when you close your eyes after spinning around way too fast in a room with blue 80s era floral print wallpaper.

Bandolino Berry...Wallpaper

You see the problem, right?  These are boring, like furniture in a nursing home boring, and most of them are dated and not in a cute Madmen kind of way.  Do you have any concept of how delighted I would be at a vintage inspired, low-heel pump like any of these? 

ModCloth: Seychelles "Watching the Clock" 

How delighted, you ask? - picture a rusty Autumn evening, the first evening of a long holiday weekend off, in which I mildly indulge in pyrotechnics by enjoying a bonfire with hot toddies, heavy on the whiskey: in a word, euphoric.  Well, even shoes like the ones above would not accomplish this level of euphoria.  But your low-heeled pumps inspire something more like this: after planning a holiday for two weeks I get a creeping death sickness the very evening before my scheduled time off, my husband is stranded away from home due to weather conditions, and an over-sharing neighbor who will not take a hint invites themselves in to "help take care of" me, i.e. I am utterly annoyed by your selection and want to be left alone.

So, in the effort to salvage our relationship even after such a blow to my basic footwear needs, I turned to the most basic of the basic: black heels.  Amoung 31 pairs of low-heeled black pumps only one peked my interest even a little bit:

Salina

These got one mediocre review, but I want to check out the Pour la Victoire brand, (it's a Brazilian company inspired by French couture, so that sounds wild) so I am going to go ahead and give these a shot, Piperlime.  And while I am waiting to get these in the mail, and appreciate your awesome free shipping, which promises to be even faster than before, I really want you to think about the direction you are currently going: do you want to keep the current Piperlime woman you are appealing to, or do you want me...and every last one of my friends, as customers (if I guess their aesthetic correctly).

Love,

Meghan

Piperlime: Style?

Dear Piperlime,

I like you a lot.  Your free shipping, your customer service, the fact that you carry brands like Frye, Hunter, Clarks, Diesel, Sperrys, Pink Studio, Puma, and that you gave a $500 gift card as a contest prize.  You have a good heart, you do.  Also, ever since I began watching Project Runway, I have my own Tim Gunn in my head who says, "Use your wall of Piperlime accessories, people," whenever I shop on your site, which is fun.  But...listen,...now that I have my own Project  Runway budget, I've taken a step back from the trees to take a look at the forest, and I am having second thoughts about our relationship.  Like, what is your style aesthetic, exactly?  I spent ages shopping around Piperlime and, I don't mean to harsh the buzz on our blooming relationship, but most of your products are, well, haphazard.  Did you ever notice that you have, like, 17 very slightly different versions of the same item?  Now, don't look at this as a heartless criticism.  Look at this as me trying to make this relationship work, and since I was not accepted for the hour long Dallas "chat" about how to make Piperlime better, this is the only way.

Essentially, to get to the root of the problem, I've been trying to figure out who the Piperlime Woman is because if that woman is not me, we can call this is a mutual break-up.  I know what the J.Crew woman is, the Anthropologie woman, the Gap and Banana Republic women, the Abercombie and Fitch (and I'll stop here before I start to pretend I have any familiarity with high end designers), but tell me, who is the Piperlime Woman?  I mean, it's almost all bland neutrals, droopy shapes, and seems to have the style sensibility of a woman in dire need of some sleep and maybe a gin and tonic who nonetheless has a lots of money she wants to spend on looking schlumpy.  Actually, at the moment, Piperlime seems to be in the style version of the Bog of Discouragement and ran out of Prozac several weeks back.  I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it: it looks like your only directed demographic is...Season 8 Project Runway winner, Gretchen.  And look I don't mean to mindlessly join the rabid dog pile of Gretchen critics since she's beat my favorite, Mondo.  Her style does have some value, and she's a good designer, sure but her look is mostly avoidant of shape, allergic to color, and sort of, well, frowny face-ish and Piperlime's current selection is likewise.  The aesthetic just befuddles me.  Unrelated words and phrases just jostle each other to attempt a full, coherent sentence, and all that's happened so far is: Camo-Drab, Pretentiously Inaccurate Attempt at "Granola", here comes Current Global Economy Chic: Depressed!, But Still Mystifyingly Expensive.  Example:



This is ugly and synthetic. Why does this cost $132?

This says: "I'm trying to save money, so I dug up my old toddler clothes to see what would work and look how great this still is on me!  Would you guess I haven't worn this since Kindergarten?"  Even for a busty girl, this is flattening and it has a little dust ruffle for your hips because everyone wants to add another ten pounds there.  Plus, there are tons more clothes like this.  The Liberty Bell shape has never been widely desired in Fashion for a reason.  Just because our economy sucks, and our country is growing more antagonistically polarized by the day doesn't mean we should wear nothing but sackcloth to reflect our sombre mood...unless you're doing an Old Testament inspired sacrifice for the sake of our country and the world, in which case, OK, but you shouldn't spend $400 for your sackcloth outfit as that sort of defeats the purpose. 

I am firmly of the mind that when you buy something, buy nice somethings or nothing at all, and when I can find really good quality somethings for a bit cheaper, I'm in retail nirvana.  You are so close to this, Piperlime!  I bought Frye sandals for like $45 + a rewards card which I will wear for the next decade or until they fall apart, but lately you have had pricey items made of synthetics and just :-(.  I know how we can solve this: I will let you hire me as an assistant buyer to help you out, because I care.  Until then (or until I spend my gift card) I will continue doing this, but with more illustrations and possibly charts, because this is fun. 

Love,
Meghan

Gift Card, Anyone?

If you make a purchase on Piperlime today in celebration of their birthday, you get a $25 gift certificate.  I'm sorry I'm enabling you!

Piperlime

Piperlime Style Competition: Results!

Guys, guys, guys!  Remember that Piperlime Style Contest from way back?  I won!!!  I was always a Piperlime fan, and now I have a prejudiced preference for them.

Piperlime

So this license to shop might be the gateway to a very serious shopping addiction.  Like heroin, it's free the first time.