Introducing YARNS: If The Shoe (Doesn't) Fit
It's storytime, people.
Hi my Costume Change cuties! Are we surviving out there? I hope this newsletter is a little bright spot in your day. This week, I’m spinning YARNS: gather round, coven—it’s fashion-themed story time!
Having a wardrobe you love often takes an investment of time: researching, shopping, returning items and trying again, tailoring, modifying, repairing, rewearing. The appearance of ease in personal style is sometimes the result of an effortful journey! I’m going to try to normalize that with YARNS, an occasional series where I give you honest accounts of an item in my closet in which I have invested a lot of time to get (or keep) right. Learn from my mistakes! Steal the tricks that worked!
First up: buying new loafers, and my hero’s journey to find The Ones.
If The Shoe (Doesn’t) Fit: My Loafer Journey
It’s giving Goldilocks.
I was 23 years old the first time I acquired a pair of loafers. They were black leather, with a slim profile, and tortoiseshell and gold plates on the vamp of each shoe.
When my dad saw the shoes (I was home for the holidays), he laughed at me. I was the kid who moved to New York to be a dancer, who worked with a bunch of artists/hippies at Grey Dog Cafe, who had painted the walls of her Brooklyn bedroom a very bright pink, and who was at the time going through a denim vest phase (lol) (but also werk). Dad—who used to describe me as his “right-brained child”—was deeply confused as to why I was gravitating towards such a sensible shoe.
But I wore those shoes into the ground. I wore them with denim, with minidresses and socks, with leggings and sweaters. Ten whole years later, they had become a very soft, very broken-in pair of shoes, and they were no longer giving me much in the way of support (it’s amazing what ten years of dancing has done to my lower back…*cue soft sobs*). My loafers could no longer do eight shows a week, metaphorically speaking. The time had come to hire an alternate.
The timing was good. Loafers, now, are hip, and so I had lots of options to pick from. But I was a girl on a budget! First, I tried for Etsy—but I misunderstood the vendor’s sizing and ordered vintage men’s loafers on accident.
Then I was briefly tempted to go with a pair of flats. But after two months of casual internet scrolling, reading other style-themed newsletters, and thinking about my closet, I decided to buy new, and I settled on a classic—a pair of brown G.H. Bass women’s loafers. The horse bits, the cherry hue in the brown, and the texture of the leather made for a vintage vibe that felt like a good closet recruit. G.H. Bass has very few brick-and-mortar locations, so I would be ordering the shoes online. At this point the holiday season was winking in the distance, so my sister offered to order them for me as an early Christmas present. Sisters are the best! Plus they were on sale! We planned to see each other for Thanksgiving, and the shoes arrived two days before the festivities of the week were set to begin. I brought the box with me, so I could open them in front of her, like a mini Christmas day.
Little did I know that unboxing those shoes Thanksgiving week was only the beginning of my journey, which, I kid you not, did not end until one week ago. Multiple online reviews had warned that the shoes ran a little big, so I sized down a half size and ordered an 8.5. My right foot walked completely out of the shoe with one step. (My feet are two different sizes, but usually half-sizing is a happy compromise.) I shipped them back a week later, this time reordering a 7.5—a full size down from my first try.
By this point the holidays were in full swing, so my sister wrapped them and put them under the tree. Goldilocks, those shoes were too small—particularly the left shoe, which I could squeeze onto my foot like an ugly stepsister, but could barely walk in. We sent them back again.
On the third try, I split the difference between the two sizes. For a moment, it seemed like I had found a winner, but by the end of that first day of wear, the gnarly blister on my left heel was begging me to swap for tennies. I limped home.
I am a stubborn person. My previous loafers had lasted me ten years and counting, and I knew if I picked well, the next ones would similarly become a closet staple. The look was right! The price was good! The quality was there! Could I nail the fit? The G.H. Bass shoes were made with new, stiff leather—they just needed to be broken in. But I needed to be able to survive the breaking-in process! SO. I did not return them. I ordered shoe stretchers.
Shoe stretchers make me a little nostalgic—I remember sitting on the floor of my dad’s closet as a little kid, and playing with his shoe forms while he got ready for work. But the ones I ordered looked nothing like Dad’s. I couldn’t decide if it was annoying or fun that they were pink (what, girls can’t have wooden shoe stretchers?!), but I liked how easy they were to adjust, length and width wise.
After a day of shoe stretching, I tried the shoes. No difference. But after four days? Friend, they were like an entirely new pair of loafers! I wore them that day. My husband made me bring back-up shoes to the theater, in case the blister returned. But no, no, I did not need those backup shoes! The sun was shining! I was free!
I don’t know what the moral of this story is. That I’m nuts? But since the stretching, I’ve worn the loafers 4 times. That’s 4 times in one week. I like them especially with wide leg denim. And aside from two post office trips to return the other pairs (lol), and waiting for the shoe stretchers to work their magic, it wasn’t a huge investment of time on my part. More an investment of patience. It is okay to make a project of your closet. Good things take time!
If you’re in the market and want to order these loafers (I still feel that the price point for the quality is tops), order one full size down from your feet at their “biggest.” Example—I am between an 8.5 and a 9. The size 8, plus shoe stretchers, was the magic fit. I also roughed up the soles a little bit on the concrete outside; I don’t like when my shoes are too slippy. If you happen to have a heel blister giving you the middle finger right now, these bandaids were $7, which is annoying because there’s not very many in the box, but they are kind of miraculous. My stylish cousin also recommended these heel pads, which really do seem to be one-size-fits-all (very stretchy silicone), and good for the blister recovery period/maybe would have prevented the blister from happening in the first place. If you live in New York City and generally need work done on a pair of shoes in your closet (we are normalizing putting time into the wardrobe!), I recommend here.
The End. That’s the Yarn for this week. Feel free to share your own shoe journey with the class via that cute lil comment box below. P. S. If this was giving Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark for you, aka investing this much time in building your closet feels extremely unfun, AND you happen to be looking for something specific, respond to this email! Or HMU in the comments below. I’d love to hear your fashion questions.
See you next week!
Costume Change is a styling newsletter (vs. a shopping newsletter). There’s no spon-con in the above recs/links/references. As always, I hope that Costume Change first and foremost provides you with inspiration to shop and re-style inside of your own closet. Thanks for reading, and reminder to keep those comments kind!