Natural Nude

Wearing a pair of nude shoes can, every once in a while, inject some serious measure of elegance into your wardrobe.  For years, I avoided the colour as I used to think that it is tough trying to match nude shoes with my work clothes, but as I realised, that notion could not be further from the truth.

In fact, after owning several pairs of nude colour shoes which I bought mainly for the designs, I have come to realise that they can be worn with any outfit and easily complement any colour scheme. I have worn nude colour shoes with a dress that was way too colourful, and was still able to get away with it without me looking too garish. I find shoes with nude colours to be soothing, too. It is a colour that exudes a sense of calmness when worn with an outfit for work.

I never actually realised this, but apparently, wearing a pair of nude shoes can make your legs appear longer - something I can appreciate since I am such a short-fart!

Nude shoes can be really versatile, yet minimalistic. Although the colour was not my first choice when I bought it as I was gunning for a pair of really, really mysterious dark maroon pair of wedges (they didn’t have my size!:/ ),  the fact that it is a pair of wedges was enough to make me beam with joy.

I love it that it fits me so snugly.

Brand: Studio Tangs

Cost:  I cannot remember!

From: C.K Tangs (Singapore)

TEVA's back!

Guess what I bumped into recently?

OK. OK. This probably look like it's nothing to you. But to me, this is a big, frickin' deal. Let me explain...these are TEVAs. My most favourite brand of sandals. Ever.

I thought I was dreaming, but the logo is all to familiar to not notice! It's about bloody time, I'd say. After more than a decade long of hiatus (of course I'm exaggerating!), it really is time they make a comeback! I guess the Lord of Footwear must have finally heard my lament, but of course he only decide that it should only make a come-back just after I got my swanky pair of TEVA from outside the country!

Anyway. I'm frickin' excited!It means, should something happens to my TEVA, I can get a replacement. They have got some funky and cool designs, too. There was no one tending to the shop when I passed this, and so I did a little of sandal-whoring.

This one is really, really light and comfeeeee. If not for the fact that it is a little too pricey and that I already have a swanky pair, I would probably have bought it. It will take me sometime for my current pair to exhaust itself before I purchase a new one. Damn.

And no, they did NOT pay me to review this. Perhaps, they should.

Jelly-crazy

Jelly, plasticky, bendable flat shoes have always fascinated me.  Unfortunately, I have always found the price to be notoriously expensive that I don’t think I could ever justify to myself why I am paying more than 150 (Singapore) dollars just to be able to walk in them.

So, when one Mummy-friend of mine told me that she got a pair of those jellies at a sale for her 3-year old tot, I was excited. I thought, if I can’t get one for myself, I would certainly consider getting one for Spud if the price is affordable. She then proceeded to send me a shot of the shop located in Siam Discovery Centre along with a couple of pictures of jelly shoes for kids which were on discount.

The shop at Siam Discovery Centre, Bangkok

Colourful selection of Jelly shoes for kids

 Aren’t they not the cutest little things!

I don’t think I would want to afford the shoes had they not be on sale.  At 40% off though, it gave me an excuse to get Spud a cool pair of blue jelly shoes. Spud showed an instant liking to the Jellies the moment I showed it to her. I let her try it on when I got home and it took a good amount of convincing before she agreed to take it off her feet and not walk around the house with it.

As for me, I cannot remember the number of times I tried a pair on since I first saw it at a local mall at least 5 years ago. Each time I tried a pair on with the intention of purchasing it, I managed to convince myself that I don’t really have a need for it. They were, however, so, so comfy and I remember that they were still pretty affordable then.  By the time I decided to actually buy it six months later at that time, two things happened:

1. They did not have the ones I really, really liked in my size.
2. Thanks to my curse, they were taken off the shelves soon after

This time though, I threw caution in the wind and scored myself a pair of brownish-red Jelly.

These jelly shoes emit a very strong, plasticky, weird smell. It sorts of give you a high, although it doesn’t beat the “high” I feel from finally being able to buy us a pair of awesome Jelly shoes!

I caught Spud sniffing her shoes the first few days every time she put them on, and when I asked her if her shoes smells yuckky, she gave me an expression as if to say I was crazy and then replied in a matter-of-fact-tone with a, "Noooo. Smells nice."

Brand:Melissa + Campana

Cost (from memory!): 740 Baht (Kids), 1,390 (Adults) 

From: Jelly Dreams, Siam Discovery Center

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Footwear

An afternoon pedi

Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING beats a pedicure session in the middle of the afternoon at lunch hour to calm your head for a couple of hours.

Notice that lady in the background sitting right behind my pedicurist with a magazine in her hand? She actually had 2 dedicated ladies tending to her for a good full hour - one to comb her down, the other to blow-dry her hair at the same time. Such is the brutal, sweet and spoilt life in Bangkok!

And notice how sometimes, the colours that you pick from those colour palettes provided by the salon always somehow turned out slightly different in shade than what you thought it would be? 
Well...that always, always happens to me.

This time it turned out to be on a slightly pinkier undertone (godammit!), and because it's gelish, I kind of have to ignore that it is a little pink and live with it for a few more weeks.

And oh! Those are my not-so-recent pair of comfy slip-on plats which I had acquired from my last Singapore trip. Simple slip-on wedges like this pair has been quite a rare find.

This one came from Studio Tangs.

My happy shoes

The words “shoes”, “bright” and “colourful” are hardly ever said in the same sentence for something I own, and technically, at my ripe young age of 3X, it shouldn’t.

But I fell in love with a pair of wedges I saw not too long ago. I cannot help myself but to shoe-whore it, and within 5 minutes, I tried, I paid, found out that it was on 60% discount and left the shop 29 dollars poorer. It was the crocheted surface that I fell in love with- a unique design I haven’t seen before. A design which begged for me to own it.

The crocheted wedges came in two colours. One featured in the picture below, and the other being in grey, black and white. The grey-black-white colour combo was nice too, but as I was in the mood for something chirpier when I bought it, I thought the latter had seemed a little bit boring.

This really must have been the most colourful pair of shoes I have ever owned in my entire adult life. I’m calling it my happy-shoes.

Although I'm hoping that I'll seasoned-out this pair soon as they are currently giving me blisters. Arrghh.

 Brand:Mitjiu

Cost: SGD 28.90 (after more than 60% discount)

From: A shop in Ion (Orchard Road, Singapore)

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Footwear

Classic black

A classic pair of black shoes is a must-have in any women's wardrobe.

I love mine in the form of (surprise!surprise!) wedges - which is a pretty hard thing to find these days. Black wedges are versatile. It is perfect for work and can be worn with a dress, pants, skirts and cropped pants.

This one I got has a velvety touch to it on the surface. It is also one of the very few pairs I bought that does not give me any blisters on my first wear.

Cost:  >3,500 baht.

Brand: J.J.B.A

From: Isetan @ Central World Plaza

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Footwear

TEVA: Outdoor Sandals

When I threw out my pair of a very well-used TEVA sandals more than 6 years ago, it never occurred to me that I would have a tough time finding another pair as a replacement.

My second pair of TEVA I owned happened to be a knock-off I got as an emergency replacement for my then battered TEVA sandals which finally gave way after 5 years while I was travelling in Laos sometime in 2006. I bought it for only 10 or 20 US dollars at some obscure small-town outdoor shop and it endured brutality pretty well for at least 4 more years.

TEVA has always been my favourite brand of outdoor sandals and needless to say, after all the round-the-world adventures with my TEVA for more than a decade, I became extremely picky when it comes to outdoor sandals. I not only love it for it’s simple but cool designs; but also because it is light-weight, resilient and most of all, extremely comfortable to wear for extended period of time or just for a casual weekend walk-about. For a sandal, it was one of the most resilient footwear I ever had. The only reason I had to finally throw it away (grudgingly!) was because it smelt of rotten carcass after being subjected to numerous tortures under varied conditions and circumstances.

Since then, I have been looking for the brand in every possible shop I know – both in Thailand and Singapore – only to come to the conclusion that they may have disappeared from the face of the earth. I blame my curse for that. I know I could have searched for it online, but given that I never really knew the exact size, I refrained from doing so to save the hassle.

I eventually gave up after 3 years of searching, and settled on a pair of Dortmüend. It was quite pricey, but did not mind paying for it as I saw it as an investment that would last me for a while. To my disappointment, the rather expensive piece of crap died on me after less than 2 years of only light usage (mostly in the weekends or for casual outdoor usage when travelling). Needless to say, I was not a very happy camper!

My search for another TEVA never really did stop. I was always hoping that I might chance by it one of these days. To my delight, I did! And I found it when we were in Holland at one small-ish shop selling outdoor stuff while I was looking for a jacket.

It might not be THE design which I fancy (the size that I liked was not available in my size), but it IS a TEVA.  After years of searching, I beamed with extreme delight on the fact that I am reunited with my favourite brand of footwear again.

And…to find out later that I had actually bought a pair of TEVA in conjunction of a cause just as I took my new sandals out of its box, makes me feel even better about owning it.

Here’s my swanky pair of foot. I am glad that the brand is still alive in other parts of the world.

Espadrilles

Judging by the increased sightings of people wearing Espadrilles in the recent days around Bangkok, I’m guessing that the demand for such footwear is now the “in” thing.

Just seeing it being worn by one of my younger clients the other day  (above picture) brought me back into my teenage years in the early 90s. At that time, Espadrilles were the rage – they were not too expensive and it was the coolest shoes to own once-upon-a-fad. I remember that Esprit was the only shop that had sold them, and they were pretty much out of stock for several weeks on end.

I also remember owning several pairs in different colours. Unfortunately, one of the reasons why I had a few pairs was because, each pair did not last very long. They get soaked really quickly if you stepped into a puddle or get caught in the rain, smelled really bad if you don’t wash them, and when washed too often, they fell apart. When you are a teenager going to school, and you take every opportunity to wear just that one pair of shoes when you are not in uniform, then it would be quite hard to keep such shoes in a wearable condition for long. I fondly recall owning a peach-coloured wedged Espadrilles that comes with what looked like a ballerina-shoes strings which was used to tie around my ankles.

As it comes to light, Espadrilles were once the shoes worn by peasants (source: wiki), but has since gained popularity. The shoes are made of cloth and have flexible soles made of jute rope – the defining characteristics of Espadrilles.

Funnily enough, the older folks who don’t quite agree with our fashion sense at that time called it the silly karang-guni shoes. I guess they were not too wrong about it as the jute rope seems like the kind of material they used to make a gunny-sack, and, in Singapore, we used to have karang guni men.

To explain a little, karang gunis are essentially rag-and-bone-men, who went door-to-door to collect old newspapers and unwanted items to resell for recycling or reused. They would bring along a karang-guni (aka gunny sack) to hold the newspapers in, haul them on their backs and continue their rounds to do the collection of old newspapers or unwanted items.  That’s the long and short of it.

Karang-guni or not, the shoes are back in fashion. I don’t think they appeal to me anymore at this day and age, but, I don’t necessarily think they look bad.

If, however, I could find me a nice wedged espadrilles, that would be a very different story!

Obsessed with wedges

Wedges are my absolute favourite footwear of all time. I don’t quite know where the love of wedges began, but for as long as I remember I have been almost obsessed with them since I started working.

I just like them – they give me the extra inches that I need (I’m really quite katek*!), they are almost always fashionable, they are versatile and most of all, can be quite comfortable.

I am extremely picky about the “right” type of wedges that I like and would wear, and so, unfortunately for me, nice wedges by my standard have been quite a rare find in Thailand.

I am always on the lookout for wedges, and if I like what I see, it does not take me too long to buy them.

Here’s my latest find:

Cost: 1,300 Baht

From: Random shop at SCB Park Plaza

*katek: short