I do love me my shoes. When I was a little kid we went to a shoe store that featured an x-ray machine that you could stick your feet inside and radiate the hell out of them. It made your bones glow. Scary, how little they knew about radiation back then. Despite my fascination with glowing bones, I still have all my toes. Just lucky, I guess.
As an adolescent, I got into bitter conflicts with my mother about sensible shoes. Dang. I got so frustrated, I went out and bought me a used pair of motorcycle boots, AKA engineer boots, at the Goodwill. They didn’t fit but they suite-ed up perfectly with the wide leather belt I wore to hold up my dungarees — yeah, that’s what we called them, dungarees, not jeans — with the buckle slung to the side.
There was a long period as student and actor where I wore cuban heels, probably because I liked the noise they made. You know actors; they always have to make some kind of noise. Cuban heels worked really well.
As a musician, I was wearing either jeans or hip stuff — and one horrible band with matching fuschia bell-bottom suits — or tuxedos. With tuxedos, I wore men’s jazz dance shoes, which I love. I went through several pairs. They’re lightweight, they quickly move, fit your feet like gloves, are comfortable to stand — and yes, groove — in.
I went through a series of lace up work boots the were de rigeur and necessary for country living. I’ve always loved the invulnerability afforded by boots that are waterproof, warm, and non-skid.
I’ve been through dozens of pairs of topsiders and other preppy East Coast footwear that I wouldn’t wear in New England but that lent a certain peculiarity to my presence n Los Angeles. I liked to buy shoes in New York that were strange, comfortable, and beautiful and wore them during my office work days in the publishing department of a civic education outfit. I even have a pair of fancy Italian wing tips that cost me $600 bucks. I’ve never worn them; they’re stiff and heavy, and now I have no use for them. I don’t know what I was thinking.
These days, in quarantine mode, I often go barefoot, or slip into a pair of Tom’s loafers; I’ve bought dozens of those because Tom’s gives away a pair of shoes for every pair they make and because they aren’t leather, which I love, because it reduces my creature-murder footprint.
I also like women’s high-heeled shoes, the real crazy creative ones like Jimmy Choos despite (a) my lack of interest in cramming my fat feet into a pair and (b) a critical awareness that high heels offer the most efficient manner of foot-binding invented by the patriarchy since the Ming Dynasty. Watching women walk in stilettos makes me wince with sympathetic pain.
But more significant than all the above, my love for shoes probably comes from my great grandfather, who ran a boot shop in Placerville, California. You can read more about John Degelman’s boot shop in an earlier Retrospect piece called “Placerville, 1888: Galoots in Mud Boots.”
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Charles DegelmanWriter, editor, and educator based in Los Angeles. He's also played a lot of music. Degelman teaches writing at California State University, Los Angeles.
Degelman lives in the hills of Hollywood with his companion on the road of life, four cats, assorted dogs, and a coterie of communard brothers and sisters.
Love this survey of all the different shoes you have worn at different times and places. Cuban heels and jazz dance shoes! Wearing Topsiders in LA but not New England speaks volumes about you. And now you wear TOMS – yay! I love my TOMS, you can see a picture of them in my story. I also love your comment about women’s high heels being the most efficient manner of foot-binding since the Ming Dynasty. Thanks for another great peek into your life!
Oops! I forgot clogs!
Sounds like you’ve pretty much worn them all, Charles…well, except for those Italian wingtips. Truly a man for all seasons!
Oh, and huarachis, I had several pairs of those over the years. California livin’!
Cool to read about your taste for the exotic where shoes are concerned. How tragic about the Italian wing tips, though. I think most of us have a “what was I thinking” section in our closets. Cozy and comfy are what matters now, I think. Thanks for the look back, and I agree about the stilettos.
iCosy and comfy sounds right, Risa. And bare feet around the house during quarantine. It’s stll summer here. And yeah, stilettos, the corporate professional equivalent of keepin’ ’em barefoot and pregnant, que no?
I am impressed that you have such a long and illustrious relationship with so much of your footwear. In spite of the fact that I wear footwear each and every day of my life, I did not find I could locate a spiritual, emotional or even aesthetic connection with any of them, and so I am skipping this topic. I do have en emotional connection to a shoeshine kit that I inherited from my Dad, but I just wrote about my dad! I enjoyed learning that other men (at least one) have strong affinities for shoes and boots, an attribute I had ignorantly ascribed mostly to women.
On a related topic, I posted in response to Laurie’s essay a hyperlink about those x-ray machines. They already knew in 1948 that they were dangerous and also that they did not help customers choose better fitting shoes! Almost the way Exxon knew since 30 years ago that they were destroying the planet and destabilizing the climate and decided to keep drilling, spilling, and selling.
Re: those x-rayed feet, Exxon, and so many other equivalents, Dale. And currently insanely de rigeur a la the gaslight administration in office. I’m guessing my real emotional connection to shoes comes from my ancestors, as mentioned at the end of this shoe entry. Galoots with Mud Boots, right here on Retro!
Wow, Charles, you have me beat pricewise on those wingtips. I thought I had to pay a lot for my “odd” shoes … Thanks for a fun recap of shoes from a male point of view.
Every once in a while I blow it as per the wing tips. I once bought a super perfect-fit overcoat with some fancy Italian label on it on sale at Lohmann’s for NYC wear. It was such a perfect fit, I didn’t notice that they’d somehow brushed the wool to make it look hairy. My partner pointed out correctly like a well-bespoke yeti. Go figure.
Charles, as always I’m amazed at your recall and your way with words!
But your story and the others this week caused me to feel a bit inadequate, and to fear that the memory is going – why don’t I remember giving much thought to all the shoes in my life?
But thank goodness I could still remember those kinky Kings Road boots!
I’ll definitely have to check out those kinky boots! Wasn’t there a musical called “Kinky Boots” that opened on Broadway, just before Covid shut it all down?
Yes C, Kinky Boots was first a film, then a Bway musical, which seems to be the order now.
It’s a great story but this avid film & theater lover actually loved the film but hated the musical. That was so disappointing to me as the score was by Cyndi Lauper who I love.
We saw Lauper live at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury a few years ago, she was dynamite, she had released her album Delta Blues.
“I love the blues,” she said, “they’re so uplifting”.
Charlie, the musical Kinky Boots played on Broadway from 2012-2019, closing many months before Covid. I saw it with my daughter Molly in 2017, and I have a great pic that I would post if there were a way to post pictures in the comments.
It was fun to read about loving shoes from the male perspective, Charles. While I never owned Jimmy Choos, and my high heel-wearing days are far in the rear view mirror, I loved your description of the pain they inflicted.
I think the office stiletto torture has slowed down over the years, and with covid, heel torture go the way of office cubicles and bad coffee.
Great survey of your shoe “fetishes” through the years, Charles. You have a reason for each (I like to imagine you in those Cuban heels, stomping around). I would love to find a good, comfortable jazz shoe; well actually more of a ballroom dance shoe – something with a bit of heel that is comfortable but will stay put when I want to dance. I’ve looked at dance stores but can’t find anything that isn’t tacky looking. I’m not doing the tango!
I understand comfort these days, of course. But I must inquire – do you wear stilettos, or just admire them (and how they make a woman’s leg look)? I would be in awe of someone so in touch with his feminine side that he would deliberately cram his “wide” feet (as you describe them) into such a shoe. While I know you are an actor and iconoclast, that is something I didn’t expect. But thanks for sharing.
The jazz shoes I used to wear were an easy find to fit. Just plain black low-heeled work shoes essentially.
Sorry to disappoint, but nah… not into wearing stilettos. I have an arcane, male, knee-jerk response to seeing a woman wearing them, with the usual accompanying spectacular apparel, but I’m also interested in them as industrial design (I don’t drive a Ferrari either and probably wouldn’t even if I could afford one, but they are still impressive.), and as a cultural, sociological phenomenon, one of those perverse oppressed/oppressor collaborations that keep coming up, like junk food, boob jobs, or weight-loss poisons.