Wednesday, June 4, 2008

So much for saving money...

I got a parking ticket. $35.

And I saw a movie. $9. Sex and the City. Highly recommended for fans.

So Carrie in the movie (and the TV show for that matter) has a shoe obsession. As Hans D.C. so eloquently put it, the New York haute couture wearing columnist was a "mad collector" of shoes and seeing what she wore in the movie, I concur. Many times throughout the movie, Carrie stresses to Mr. Big on the importance of a bigger closet. She was even willing to swallow her pride to get a pair back (I don't want to spoil the plot!). Hans even furthers the concept by establishing the shoe-collecting sub-culture as a game, but he differentiates himself from others by wearing his shoes. Which brings me to my next point...

Why collect clothing and not wear them?

As Beverly Jackson established in her article, shoes can be a huge indicator of social status, whether one had bound feet or wore heels, conveying a western ideal. So as a shoe collector, only stylistically rare shoes of some significance would be collected. But shoes are also utilitarian objects, so why not wear them? It's understandable if a Faberge egg collector didn't walk around wearing the egg but shoes are useful. It would appear then that collecting is a waste of resources, hoarding what could be used by so many other people. A collection that doesn't get displayed for more than one person's joy is but a mere waste of space.

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