Shoe Personality of the Week: 11/08/2010

it's been a long time
i shouldn't'a left you...

*she's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack* & a quick welcome to the new faces.

anywho....

When I was little what endeared me most to Paddington Bear was his rain gear. Yellow was my favorite color & I loved me some teddy bears. As a child I always wanted a pair of galoshes like Paddington & a matching rain coat slicker. As I got older, & lived in places where rain isn't a prominent part of my memory, the love of all things rain disappeared. As a young adult I fell in love with Columbia's take on rain gear. They took those ugly duck boots and made 'em hot to me & I wanted the full body slicker to match. When I commit, I commit fully. Being the petite woman I am, it just never made sense for me to actually purchase any of it because I still wasn't exactly tormented by rain. I grew older & just identified all things rain related as ugly & gave up on it as a wardrobe necessity.

Now, though, in the Twenny10, the rain boot especially has stepped its game ALL THE WAY UP!! While these rubbers are functional, combating against puddles of a different sort, they have upped the style quotient. As Mom Nature gets in gear, practicing her precip game, now is the time to get up on the rain boot evolution. It was the rain sets for children that 1st opened me up. Who can resist the wee ones dressed as frogs & ladybugs from head to toe?


I got to a point where I was following little kids around on rainy days, enamored with their get-ups. Then I went out searching for those adorable boots in the largest children's sizes & considering the slickers & umbrellas to match. Luckily the industry caught up with my desires before I made such an unforgivable fashion faux pax. Rain boots got cuter & I tried 'em on but still couldn't get comfortable with wearing that much unstructured rubber. 1 day during my carless period I was at the bus stop on a rainy day & caught the back splash on a rainy morning & had to go in wearing wet denim from ankle to knee. Dee-skusting!! I got over myself & bought some rubber boots. Now I'm obsessed. I bought a cute little patterned pair that actually match a few things in my wardrobe. Since then (2 years actually), I've been browsing the market for my next pair...s. These are my new favorite finds.

Keeping in line with my old childhood friend, Paddington, these aren't bad for classic rubber galoshes:


While I believe everyone should pay tribute to the beauty of childhood as often as possible, I really wanna step my rubbers game up like this:


Take that Trojans. Not done yet.

As I'm out here navigating the world, & my own little part of it, things get a little soggy. Skip a rainmaker, I'm out here creating tears--of joy & sadness. I prefer the tears of joy released involuntarily when a child does something spectacular or when a loved 1 shares something beautifully unexpected. Those tears of sadness do creep up from time to time &, while I've been pretty good about not crying, tears caught up with me this past week & let me know we might be hanging out on the regular. It's not what I want, but apparently, I'm not always the captain. So, while these kids are catching me leaking all about the eyes in yet another example of just how very human I am, at least my feet can go hard & be dignified while rocking these:


Rain boot proper!!

Watch me move.