Wednesday 22 February 2012

Stepping out in Berlin...

Settling into life last summer in Berlin I began a enduring love affair with...sensible, yet bodacious, shoes. I remember musing with a friend on how well-shod German women were. How you could spot a German woman in a queue at the airport for her lime-green rubber-soled flats, or her wool-lined, sturdy-heeled purple boots. I pressed my face to the window panes of quaint little shops elegantly stocked with artisanal mary-janes, vintage courts and proper riding boots. I indulged one too many times in ‘essential’ purchases of suede lace-ups and platform slip-ons.

Then I discovered that opinion is divided on the German proclivity for sturdy, well-made footwear. “Uh, I hate shoes here, it’s hardly Italy!” an American friend with dainty feet and expensive tastes, complained. “Uh, they look like orthopaedic shoes!” lamented a fellow Brit expat. 

Hmm... 

I appreciate the elegance of classic high-heels as much as the next woman, but it has never been a love-relationship, and that’s mostly due to the behaviour of those shoes towards me and not the other way around. For my money, I’d take playful, bouncy shoes over towering spindly-heeled stilettos that pinch and rub and cause backpain any day of the week. As you’ve probably detected, I’m over 30 and firmly in the camp that thinks shoes should be comfortable, not punishing. But I say this as a lover of style, not as someone who completely abstains altogether.

The flowering of the trend for happy feet in Berlin has surely to do with the eco-culture that the city embraces sincerely, if somewhat smugly (bespoke organic leather booties for toddlers, anyone?). It reflects the, very welcome, in my view, preference for well-made, lasting, and ethical fashion, over disposable, impossibly cheap fashion. Even amongst the super trendy folks in head to toe vintage (of which, more will follow) I note a tendency towards comfortable, sensible (and what dirty words these are in fashionable circles) sturdy shoes. Long may it continue… 

Coming soon: the vagaries of vintage; the war between afro and cycle helmet and what it means to be ‘multi-kulti’ in Germany