Shopping Therapy

When the disgruntled masses protest government policies, the decidedly less gruntled go shopping. While I was charging the single most expensive shoe purchase of my life, throngs were swarming the historic Republique and Bastille today to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-crime proposals. According to the news here, demonstrators hung a stained French flag and hailed the French President as "Sarkozy, son of Petain," referring to Marshal Philippe Petain, who led the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in World War II.
While thousands were protesting proposed laws that would take away French citizenship from immigrants guilty of crimes like attacks on police, polygamy or female circumcision, I wandered into the Francois Pinot boutique, official storefront for Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. Being a rube from Central Virginia, I stumbled into this particular store after failing to find satisfactory shoes in four other stores to go with the gray suit I’ve purchased for a French reception to be held at the World Energy Congress conference in Montreal this month. I asked the very helpful salesclerk for shoes to go with a gray pair of slacks, or “un pantalon gris.” After trying on a pair of shoes that felt as though they’d been custom tailored for my feet in a miraculous color that will go with anything, I was, of course, sold. Then she showed me the matching travel handbag, which was incredible, but at 890 euros, it was a bit beyond my price range. Now, you might think the handbag would have been a clue, but I had not realized my largesse until she gestured for me to enter my PIN code, and I saw the price of my shoe lust: 310 euros, or almost 400 U.S. smackers. Gasp. The shoes were almost two months of rent at the first apartment Sid and I lived in when we first got married. The handbag, almost 6 months.
So, upon acquiring my first designer shoes, I’ve also acquired a higher power of rationale: a good pair of classically stylish shoes will last a lifetime, and it’s not like I dropped a thousand in a favored dress shop. So really, I’ve come out ahead, right? But who am I kidding? The fact is that I’ve finally understood Carrie Bradshaw’s compulsion for designer shoes on” Sex and the City”: nothing feels sexier than haute couture. Except maybe zero credit debt. The jury’s still out on that one.