Play With Your Clothes - Get Your Ducks in a Row

Jean says: Get your ducks in a row! I manufacture excuses to incorporate a set of vintage '50s plastic duckie diaper pins (about $15 from the Pier Antiques Show) into my normally black/grey wardrobe palette. Nothing shouts corporate compliance like pink duckies, I always say. (With yellow wings & blue eyes & beaks, the pink duckies cover all of the infant gender bases.) Valerie persuaded me to further this wardrobe leitmotif by strongly recommending my recent Topshop purchase of pink socks with yellow duckies. Stay tuned for reports of future duckie outings!

Valerie adds: The first time Jean wore these, also on this shirt, she'd lined them up half on the left, half on the right, so from a distance they looked a bit like military braid on a jacket. The juxtaposition of the military precision and the smiling duckies was priceless!

Shoe Kaddish*

Manolo Blahnik, Louboutin,
Prada, Miu Miu and Lanvin
Rate their product's sex appeal
Proportionate to its dizzying heel.
And fashion magazines concur
That pointy toes are de rigeur.
So those of us with hammer toes
Neuromas, bunions, heaven knows
Decry our fate and curse the day
We gave our sexy heels away
To then buy Crocs that hug the ground
And let our toes cavort around.
We women of a certain age
Who yearn for heels all the rage
Lack the cushioning required
To wear those temples inversely spired.
But no men take the time to schmooze
With women wearing Merrell shoes.
In flattened sole and widened toe
We're shunned by mighty Manolo.
"Can't comfy shoes be sexy too?"
We plead in vain to Jimmy Choo.
"You've no idea the pain one feels
In one's knees when wearing heels."
And so we cry "Oh masters, dear
Our sad lament please kindly hear:
Make a shoe that looks like THAT
But do please leave the heel FLAT.
For age dictates our footwear choices.
We beseech you, hear our voices
And make a shoe that's not so spiky."
Reply the masters:
"Let them wear Nike."

*All rights reserved. This poem cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written consent of the Idiosyncratic Fashionistas.

Fabulous vintage orange suede shoes with pointy heels, pointy toes and pointy tongue by Manolo Blahnik. No longer possible to wear; never possible to give away. Flat black and white shoes with crepe soles, linen vamp (from a Bergdorf napkin) and elastic ankle strap designed and hand made by Valerie in frustration after years of not finding any fabulous flat shoes at retailers (and after months of shoe making lessons).