I
remember the very first time I had shoe envy.
I was seven (yes, seven), and the shoes I coveted belonged to a girl
named Leanne, who lived in my street.
It was the same sort of longing I’d feel today for a pair of £925
Alexander McQueen leather biker boots, only these shoes cost about ten pounds
and were bought at the local Brunswick Shoe Warehouse in Sunderland. This was basically the shoe-shop equivalent
of Netto, which now, rather ironically, stands where Brunswick once was.
The glorious image of those shoes will be forever burnt into the psyche
of my seven-year-old self. Made from
garish pink glittery PVC, and with a clumpy heel of about two inches – I had
officially fallen in love for the first time, albeit, with a pair of
shoes. And for a girl whose idol was
Geri Halliwell, the jellies had absolutely nothing on her red patent-leather
platforms, but maybe, just maybe, if
I could have possessed those shoes, a smidgen of her sass and confidence would
have rubbed off on me.
I vividly remember the day Leanne debuted the heeled jellies. It was a muggy blue-skied day, back in the
summer of ’97. Down the street she
pranced, with as much ease and elegance as a Ballet Russes prima-donna, despite
the perilously high heel. I watched in
awe, mouth agape, suddenly feeling ashamed of the grass stained no-brand
trainers on my own big-for-my-age feet.
Before I knew it, I was pleading with her to let me try them on. Desperate, I know, but what’s a shoestruck
girl to do? It was the first time I
truly believed I could be someone other than that Big Lanky Goofy Girl, all
because of the most glorious pair of shoes I had ever had the privilege of
laying my young eyes on.
Of course, she refused at first, with the sort of bare-faced arrogance
and smug self-assurance that would cause Supernanny’s Jo Frost to spontaneously
combust. The sinister Cheshire cat grin
painted across her otherwise angelic face genuinely frightened me. She was about a foot shorter than me and was
blessed with the skeletal structure of a sparrow – but she had something I
wanted, and she was intoxicated on the unfamiliar thrill of having this unseen
power over me.
She knew how badly I wanted those shoes, and she took great pleasure in
shamelessly flaunting them at any
opportunity – sprinting into her porch (probably faster than Hussein Bolt) to
change into them each time she saw that I was playing out in the street. She didn’t care one iota there was the very
real possibility she could end up breaking her ankle and/or neck when she wore
them when joining in our games of tiggy scarecrow and hide ‘n’ seek. But it was a risk worth taking in her
opinion. She was evil.
Three packets of strawberry Hubba Bubba, ten Pokémon cards and a
fortnight later, Leanne eventually caved in.
Yes, I bribed her relentlessly, but it paid off. Sort of.
The moment she removed the jellies from her own tiny feet seemed to play
out in Matrix-style slow-mo. I almost
cried with happiness, and I’m certain I shrieked with delight, as she passed
them over to me as if they were the Holy Grail.
My feet were a good two sizes bigger than hers, but somehow, I managed
to bundle them into the jellies. My
dreams were cruelly shattered the moment I attempted to walk in them. Imagine Bambi, drunk on Lambrini,
blindfolded, before being strapped into a fairground Waltzer for fifteen
minutes and then catapulted like an Angry Bird into the middle of an ice
rink. That gives you an idea of how I
must have looked.
Of course, my mother would never buy me my own pair of heeled jellies.
She was all for ‘practical’ shoes.
Her definition of practical? Really, really, REALLY ugly. Like,
hideous. Abominable. I painfully recall the thick-soled navy
atrocities she’d pick out for me ready for the new school year. Let’s not even discuss the aforementioned
no-brand trainers she bullied me into wearing throughout my childhood.
Our next trip to the Brunswick Shoe Warehouse resulted in us negotiating
on a flat version of Leanne’s jellies.
Broken-hearted, I convinced myself I didn’t need heels anyway. I was tall enough without them, wasn’t
I? At least the flat ones wouldn’t hurt
my feet! Ha! Ah, forget it, who was I kidding? I would have given my whole collection of
Pokémon cards, Spice Girls album and
my beloved Spotty dog teddy for those freaking shoes. I may have waited five painfully long years
later until I owned a pair of my own heels (knee-high black suede boots, bought
especially for the birthday disco of the most popular girl in school) but I’ll
never forget how I felt in those fleeting moments of wearing the heeled jelly
shoes.
They may not have been the most practical shoes, or the most
comfortable. Heck, I could barely fit my
big toe in them. They may have been
aesthetically hideous, despite seven-year-old me deeming them absolutely
impeccable in every sense. But for the
first time in my life, I realised that by simply wearing a pair of shoes, I
could transform myself and feel like
a different person. I could feel
fabulous, and confident, and special, all thanks to two crudely constructed
pieces of PVC being worn on my feet. And
that was the moment fashion changed my life.
A pair of jelly shoes made all of those dreams about the person I always
wanted to be a reality.
