Sunday afternoon, I found myself at one of my favorite intersections in Boston: Boylston and Newbury, right by Copley Square.
The weather was all wrong for being there, but I had a long-overdue appointment to match my winter-bleh to my summer-golden haircolor, and my salon is directly across from the Public Library. Athena Salon, formerly Linea Aveda. I’ve been going there since before the current management took over, and to Linea back when it was in a South End basement by the BCA. I adore and highly recommend my fantastic colorist, Scot, who has recently been “promoted” to actually cutting my hair, which I don’t let just anyone do.
Summer is the right time to walk Copley Square. There are tourists and tents and you can spend hours in the park—which is only a single square block—when it’s lovely out. Sometimes there will be free concerts on the Library steps, under the great stone façade, between the two enormous bronze ladies, Art and Science. And there are certain afternoon hours into early evening when the Hancock tower turns a blue that should not be allowed to exist, it’s amazing. I forget sometimes how easy Boston is to fall in love with, especially when I was just learning it all from the beginning.
Sunday was sunny, but cold and gray-winded. My fancy roots and fresh blowout decided it was a great to day walk up Newbury Street. Now, the correct way to walk Newbury Street is from the Boston Common through the Public Garden until it ends at Mass Ave and the Other Side Café, but I was almost precisely in the middle. I opted to walk toward the Park, in part because it was the longer walk, with better shopping, but also it would be nicer to take the Red Line back to Cambridge than the 1 bus. I also knew I’d find espresso in that direction. A lady must set her priorities.
There was a downside to the caffeine, though, because the cup kept me out of some of my favorite stores: high-end consignment shops Second Time Around and The Closet (best buy: gorgeous Prada stilettos under $100—I eventually gave these to my sister because my feet are simply not a size nine, no matter how much I stuff the toes), and French Connection, among others. I was empty-handed and ready to shop by the time I hit Benetton, though, and was delighted by the current selection and staff.
I tried on some amazing pieces: a soft, stretchy cotton top I certainly should have purchased (I’m always so surprised when I’m not an extra-small in shirts; I underestimate my bustline); a spectacular swishy cotton skirt that was perfect for summer cookouts and dancing, but too expensive for how flimsy it was; a straight 40s-style pencil skirt in navy pinstripes with great detailing at the waist; and a straight formal cotton summer sheath.
Everything fit me strangely, though. Going to the gym with the Fabulista has changed my shape quite a bit, and while I never have been and never will be straight up-and-down, I’m no longer quite as bottom-heavy as I am used to. This, of course, is the main reason I’m shopping for clothes. I also had to navigate Italian sizing, and ended up being exactly between a size 38 (US size 2, according to one of the staff) and 40 (presumably size 4). If they sold a 39, or if it were possible to create a chimera-skirt with a size 38 waist and a size 40 hip, I would have spent a lot of money.
Then I saw Cole Haan.
When you go to the gym, you read a lot of magazines on cardio machines—’glance at’ more than ‘read,’ so images speak loudly, and are about all that stays with you. And I had been seeing a lot of well-done advertisements for gorgeous shoes designed by Cole Haan in collaboration with Nike for several weeks. So I walked in. In jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt, with my glossy polished new ‘do, I was a blank slate. And I was very well-treated. When I said that “I promised myself I’d only try them on—to see if they’re really as comfortable as everyone says,” there was no pressure at all to buy.
I tried on two pairs: the Camilla in green and the Livia in tan. I chose the first because I fell madly in love with it the moment I emerged onto the second floor showroom (it was like something Sophia Loren or Brigitte Bardot would wear to meet Mamie Eisenhower or the Queen of England), and the second primarily for its vicious-looking heel, and equally vicious name. I’m a perfect size 8 in $300 shoes the same as $30 shoes; that’s nice to know. It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity (can you source that phrase?). I’m fairly certain the young salesman was Greek; when I prattled on about the fabulous namesake of the slingback, how she poisoned and murdered nearly a dozen people to manipulate Imperial succession (yes, I read I, Claudius and saw the BBC miniseries—and yes, I realize it’s fictionalized), he weakly noted that there are similarly fierce females in the history of Greece.
The experience of standing in the shoes was quite disconcerting; I would have to relearn the lessons of well over a decade of walking. There’s a pitching sensation; apparently my natural instinct is to jut my hips and thighs forward to compensate for lordosis, but that is completely unnecessary in the Nike collaborations. It was incredibly strange to be standing, moving, in four-inch heels using body-memory I associate with flats.
That’s not to say that lordosis is canceled out; your hips and bum still do their thing, but there’s less work involved for your body. It’s just that that work, those movements and body-placements, are not even second- but first-nature to me. I trip and stumble when I wear flats. Flats require effort from me after so many years of not wearing them at all; heels are my element. And even though they were comfortable—amazingly so—I was very awkward in the Cole Haans because I couldn’t adapt to their demand that I maneuver as if I were wearing flats. For someone unaccustomed to—or uncomfortable—wearing and walking in high heels, these would be perfect, and probably worth the price.
