Remember what I said about à la mode meaning “in fashion” in French? I promised I’d share. OK, I admit that it’s highly unlikely that this woman is French. I had to take the picture anyway.
Yes, one boot is black and white and one is green and white.
I know, I know, I sound catty. But it’s all in good fun. Actually, I think I’m beginning to get an idea why they dress like this…
I’ve been shopping for a pair of black boots for months. I have really skinny calves, so it’s hard to find any in which I don’t look like a 10-year-old wearing mommy’s shoes. Plus, most of the boots I’ve seen in Paris look like something only a hooker would wear…
A couple of weeks ago, I found a pair. No tassles, buckles, zippers, fur, laces, metal dangly things, random spots of color. It’s quite common to find boots sporting several of the aforementioned decorative touches… These had a low heel, a simple strip of leather up the outside. Classy. I pushed my jeans up to the knee and tried them on and they looked good. They were a half size too big (they didn’t have my size and neither did the other location of that chain a couple of blocks away) but I’m not averse to comfort in shoes, so I didn’t mind.
A few days later, I put them on with a skirt and thought they were too loose in the calf after all (Vincent did too). It hadn’t been obvious in jeans. So I decided to take them back. I hadn’t worn them, I had the receipt, the box, the bag. I paid with a credit card. No problem, right?
Wrong. The snotty women in the shoe shop informed me that they don’t do refunds. Ever. Only exchanges. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the store to exchange them for but the same hooker boots I’d seen there in the first place. And they don’t even issue store credit so you can come back in a couple of months and maybe find sandals that don’t look like something you’d wear for your boyfriend’s Greek goddess fantasy…
I asked them if it was common for stores not to do refunds and they said a lot of stores didn’t. Blew me away. It remains to be seen if they were telling the truth… One thing I did know before I moved here is that the “customer is always right” concept does not exist in the French mind. I’d forgotten that, though.
So I went to the second location to see if they had my size by some miracle, even though they hadn’t the day I bought these. No. Then I asked the lady there to call another store and they did have my size. So I went and tried them on. They are marginally better. And I’ll have to live with that.
Live and learn. It’s not a total loss; I can wear them under jeans and long skirts. But still. Jesus.
So that was the single most infuriating shopping experience of my life so far. Anyway, now I’ll never know if the poor girl in the picture ever had second thoughts about her boots, or if she was just stuck with ‘em and decided to roll with it…
Remember what I said about à la mode meaning "in fashion" in French? I promised I'd share. OK, I admit that it's highly unlikely that this woman is French. I had to take the picture anyway.
Yes, one boot is black and white and one is green and white.
I know, I know, I sound catty. But it's all in good fun. Actually, I think I'm beginning to get an idea why they dress like this...
I've been shopping for a pair of black boots for months. I have really skinny calves, so it's hard to find any in which I don't look like a 10-year-old wearing mommy's shoes. Plus, most of the boots I've seen in Paris look like something only a hooker would wear...
A couple of weeks ago, I found a pair. No tassles, buckles, zippers, fur, laces, metal dangly things, random spots of color. It's quite common to find boots sporting several of the aforementioned decorative touches... These had a low heel, a simple strip of leather up the outside. Classy. I pushed my jeans up to the knee and tried them on and they looke
