The other day, I was excitedly pointing out these Givenchys to my dad (the ones Vanessa Traina is wearing), asking him whether I should get them or not. “they’re ok…you already have shoes like that though.” Well, that just seemed absurd to me. I didn’t have shoes that were anything like these amazing ankle cuff sandals! Nothing! But of course, my dad was, in a way, right. I do have lots of black shoes, lots of sandals, and lots of sort of tough, intimidatingly high footwear. Growing up with a financial manager dad, I’ve always valued diversity in my portfolio, so should I be looking to expand my shoe collection (and for that matter, my clothing collection) to lots of really different styles? I wondered if I should stop buying crazy black shoes and instead find myself some satin bowed lanvins or something (gasp!) brown. But as soon as I thought that, I knew that wouldn’t work. Sure, diversity is nice, but if my clothes were all so mish mash that every time I got dressed I had a completely different style, well, that would be a bit strange. I’m so stylistically greedy, and I like wearing lots of different styles, but I always want to have a very defined, personal style. I dont want to be predictable, but i want my own style, too. I’m still working on what exactly that style is, but in the mean time, I’ll take my “different but similar” shoes. So, my dad was probably right to encourage me to diversify, but Ill just have to find a way to do that while keeping my personal style intact.

photo: jak & jil