Comments on: Finding the Perfect Pair

By: penny

penny — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:28:16 +0000

I’m not too bad on the shoes, but that’s because it is difficult to find shoes I like in my size. i have a bag problem however….

Yet for both the bags and shoes there are 2-3 that i wear/use consistently and the remainder sorta just ‘hang out’ and wait ..

we won’t go into the yarn stash… and I know i’m no where near as ‘bad’ as many i know …

By: Britt

Britt — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:16:23 +0000

@Shannon: I, too, have a significant pile of t-shirts that I force myself to go through at least once a year. I have a hard time parting company with them, even though I donate all my old clothing, so I know they’re going to a good cause. However, it still feels like I’m throwing them away.

By: Shannon Ehlers

Shannon Ehlers — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:45:34 +0000

I am very tame in the shoe realm (one pair brown and one pair black dress oxfords, one pair brown / one pair black cowboy boots, one pair sneakers – or urban hikers or whatever they are called now). I have noticed that I’ll often keep the old, ripped out sneakers a little too long after purchasing new ones, justifying this by saying I need another pair to mow the lawn or for fishing or what have you.

While my shoe collection is fairly modest, my T-shirt collection would fill a closet. I’ve become a repository for T-shirts and could probably start a museum. I’ve lost count but at one point earlier in the year I estimated a grand total somewhere north of 200 T-shirts.

I am presented with these every time I turn around. Attending a conference can sometimes net you six or seven free T-shirts, new business associations at work often bring a flood of “swag” including T-shirts, my family loves to buy me T-shirts as souvenirs from travel, some organizations provide their members with yearly T-shirts, et cetera.

I have been the benefactor/victim of all of these means of distribution and more! Because I work in a very relaxed atmosphere and can utilize the garments, I guess I just feel that it is a waste to get rid of them. But enough is enough – not only can I not hope to use all of these T-shirts, but they take up valuable real estate which could better be used for something else. I am now in the process of winnowing down the pile as part of my year-end organizing.

By: Britt

Britt — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:50:55 +0000

@Joe: Even more so than an impulse purchase, how often to people, men and women, go shopping for new shoes when they buy a new outfit? We’ve been told it’s part of the package and often believe that nothing currently in the closet will work for our purposes. In regards to quality, as with many things of late, the general public seems have settled for cheap over long lasting and/or attractive.

@t h rive: I suspect you’re more accurate than not. Fews look as good in a store or make less sense once brought home than a pair of shoes.

By: t h rive

t h rive — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:32:37 +0000

I have heard that (and you can quote me on this ’cause it was on tv and everything on tv is true) – shoes are the NUMBER ONE REGRETTED purchase for women, regret that is felt even just minutes after the purchase, then I’m sure wears (no pun intended) off.

…guess it sums up the impulse buy phenom’.

Shoes. I think I wish I owned more, but I’m too utilitarian to own shoes for style only – and i’m too cost-conscious.

By: Joe T.

Joe T. — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:11:58 +0000

Since shoes are what is considered a “small ticket” purchase, I guess they’re often an impulse-driven buy. I suspect this might be even more true for most women, who might see shoes more as a fashion accessory, at least in some situations. In that case, I wouldn’t feel guilty for having 30 pairs of shoes. At any given moment, I have about 10 pairs of dress shoes and another 10 pairs of athletic shoes.

What I find much more interesting about shoes is how both the quality and the styling of most mass-manufactured shoes (at least for men) has deteriorated over the past 20 years or so. With most manufacturong being outsouced to cheap-labor Asian countries, you find a lot of signs of poor quality. I’m talking about extensive use of rubber, moulded plastic, and designs that are obviously conceived to run quickly through a factory or sweatshop — resulting in ugly, bulbous shapes, poor fit, use of glue instead of stitching, seams that don’t quite meet, etc.