Remembrance of shoes past

I'm schizophrenic about weeding my closets: On the one hand, I clean them out at least twice a year, tossing outdated, poorly fitting clothes; but some things I keep for years for no particular reason. Then, often as not, when I finally bite the bullet and discard something I've been hanging on to for years, it comes back in style the following season. Or I just have a sudden craving to wear it.

Such is the case with a pair of wedges that I must have bought at least 15 years ago. They were white, taupe and black and the front strap covered just the widest part of the foot. They were incredibly sexy in a woman-with-bound-feet kind of way because the heel was high and the wedge made your foot look very, very small. As I recall the problem with the shoes was the back strap, which had a tendency to slip off if you took a normal-sized step. So the only way you could wear them was to take small, mincing steps. (Hence the bound foot analogy.)

Now, with wedges everywhere, I find myself thinking longingly of them. The white/black/taupe color scheme is a perfect fit for this year's spring clothes. But alas they are no more.

BTW, this weekend I tried on the shoe pictured here in a nice chocolate brown. You can't tell from the picture, but the wedge is mirrored, which makes for one cool shoe.