The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (17 page)

       
‘My yoga guru says that my stilettos are interfering with my mind–body energies. I need to be more “grounded”.’

       
Oh, not the yoga still. I was so sure she’d have tired of it by now.

       
‘Since when?’ I ask.

       
‘Last night. Today’s my maiden voyage,’ she says with mock trepidation and playfully pretends to lose balance.

       
As if it wasn’t bad enough back in March, when she gave up hair dye and ‘the world of illusion’. Her guru assuring her that mousy brown, also
circa
1985, was more conducive to inner balance and harmony than golden blonde.

       
I glance over to Marco to gauge his reaction. His continuing affection is, after all, the goal of Fi’s whole yoga farce. And try as I might, I just can’t get my head around the logic of seducing the demi-god of stilettos by waddling along like a flat-footed penguin. But then again, he clearly adores her, no matter what her hair colour or shoe style. There’s no telling Fi this, of course.

       
I’m mortified when Marco catches my eye, and gives me a cheeky smile and a wink, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

       
As I watch him take Fi by the hand and walk up the small staircase with her, it suddenly strikes me: maybe this flat-shoed folly
will
work. She’s certainly more needy and dependent on him, now that her centre of gravity’s entirely evaporated. Let’s hope so. Because I’d hate her to be trying to fix something that isn’t broken, particularly as it seems to be going so well between them.

       
We pull aside a heavy gold-mesh curtain in order to enter the exhibition, and the ‘wow factor’ hits us immediately. I feel like we’ve been entombed – or at least gone to heel heaven! The whole room is darkened and all I can see is a twelve-foot-high wall of perspex shoeboxes, stacked together like brickwork, and containing glittering shoes of every colour of the rainbow. Similar shoebox-walls separate each section.

       
I’m so glad Fi enticed me out of my Kilburn safe haven. It’s impossible not to be mesmerised by the vast showcase of colours, music, books, hand-drawn sketches and of course many, many pairs of shoes in countless styles and heel shapes, and not to forget fabrics. I really don’t know which way to look first.

       
Millie’s squealing with delight and pulling at the straps of her pushchair, trying to get out. Now that she’s crawling, she’s not so happy to be strapped in for very long. Plus, I know exactly what she wants to do – play with the shoes. Her favourite pastime at home and a definite no-no here.

       
After my humble foray into basic shoe-making with Marco, I can tell just how masterfully these shoes have been made. My favourite parts are undoubtedly the embellishments: jewels, fringing, fur, rivets, bells, eyelets, appliqués, pompoms, shells, ribbons, feathers, the list is endless. The shoes positively dance with the energy of imagination. It’s completely inspiring and fills me with a rush of enthusiasm for my mum shoes project. I stop to jot down a few ideas on the back of a scrap of paper I find in Millie’s nappy bag.

       
Marco spots me.

       
‘Ah! The sign of a true designer,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘I never go anywhere without my notebook.’ He holds up a battered leather-bound diary that he’s been sketching in too. We both laugh.

       
‘I’ll be seeing you in the studio soon, then,’ he says.

       
‘Maybe,’ I blush. And then Fi catches up to us and shuffles us along.

We’ve now done a full loop of the exhibition, and find ourselves back near the entrance in a darkened lounge area, where there is an enormous bright-red sofa along with a continuous screening of Carrie’s shoe-thief scene from
Sex and the City
on the opposite wall. Fi, Marco and I settle on to the sofa to watch it, with Millie beside us in her pushchair, when Fi suddenly spots Ben from our shoe school.

       
‘Ben, yoo-hoo! Ben!’ Subtlety has never been one of Fi’s finer points.

       
He’s with a group of women and has his arm around a slightly podgy, plain-looking girl. Funny, I’d always imagined his fiancée to be a bit more glam. And a bit younger. But that’s just like Ben, I guess, to go for personality over looks. He really is so mature for a guy his age.

       
Anyway, I always get a thrill, in a city the size of London, to run into someone I know. And Ben is definitely surprised to see us, hurriedly making his way over.

       
We both immediately spy his shiny red trainers.

       
‘You didn’t tell us you were a Shoe Princess convert,’ I tease. Fi cackles and we’re shushed by everyone reverentially waiting for the video clip to begin again.

       
We hastily agree a rendezvous at a nearby café before he goes off to rejoin his party and we skulk back on to the sofa. Marco’s decidedly unmoved when we gloat to him about our imminent meeting with Ben’s much-talked-about fiancée. I always sense that he frowns upon our overenthusiastic interest in her. He certainly never seemed to talk to Ben about her at the shoe-school weekend – but maybe that’s just a bloke thing.

       
Marco decides to leave us alone to watch Carrie, and darts off to do another quick round of the exhibition.

       
Fi and I had both forgotten how completely fabulous the shoe skit was. We’re sitting discussing whether to stay and watch it a second time when Marco returns, seemingly rather pleased with himself.

       
‘He leans down and, placing his hand on my forearm, says, ‘Jane, have you got a moment? There’s an excellent book on display I’ve just found – I’d love to show you.’

       
‘Ohhh-K?’ I glance at Fi.

       
‘It was a text that I used in my studies at Ars Arpel in Milan. I think it would be very good for you – if you’re serious about shoe-making.’

       
Fi relaxes back into the sofa and kindly offers to sit with Millie through another rerun while I quickly go and check out this book. Luckily she’s not the least bit interested in shoe textbooks or shoe-making, for that matter – Marco and Ben practically made her shoes for her on our weekend school – so at least I don’t feel guilty.

       
The book is back in the middle of the exhibition but, as it turns out, it’s well worth the trek. I love seeing it and hearing Marco talk avidly of his student days at Ars Arpel. He also tells me how he now goes back to give tutorials – arranging them to coincide with his visits home to see his mum and siblings – and that he could easily get me in on one of his classes, if I wanted. Dare I even dream!

       
As we make our way back to Fi we’re stunned to run straight into her – holding Millie on her hip – barging through the mesh curtain with all the grace of a bank robber.

       
‘Don’t say anything. Jane, follow me. Marco, go inside and get Ben to help,’ she says calmly yet purposefully.

       
We both know her well enough not to ask any questions.

Finally, out on the riverbank and well away from the exhibition, we stop. And Fi explains.

       
With Marco and I taking a little longer than expected, Millie started to get restless, so Fi thought she’d let her out of the pushchair for a stretch. Of course, in a split-second, Millie crawled straight over to the shoeboxes and with one dainty nudge caused the entire entrance wall to collapse. Leaving the remainder of the shoebox-walls wobbling precariously like the San Andreas Fault.

       
Total chaos erupted. Security guards streamed in and Fi and Millie slipped out.

       
We burst into fits of laughter and make our way back across the footbridge; the Thames’ dark inky water flowing strongly beneath us. I’m sure it’s seen worse crimes in its time than an inquisitive eight-and-a-half-month-old tumbling a few hundred shoeboxes!

       
Ben, I’m told, managed to use his best set-design skills to reconstruct the shoebox-wall. Aunt Fi needed a strong drink and a lie-down after almost crippling herself by running in flat shoes. And Marco stealthily took home the incriminating evidence – Millie’s pushchair – hand-delivering it back to me the next day.

       
Oh Millie. What a story to tell on your twenty-first birthday!

www.ShoePrincess.com
 
My spies at the exhibition on Friday tell me it was a resounding success – despite the small shoebox earthquake! So thank you to all of my loyal subjects who went along, and helped to raise an astonishing amount of money for charity.
 
Shoe Shame
 
Like many of you, I find some of the images in the media these days very disturbing, and yesterday was no exception: I opened my newspaper to the horror-vision of The Cat sitting on the edge of a pool with her A-list Sardinian crowd – feet dangling in the water with her stilettos still on. Has this Cat creature no respect for the sanctity of shoes? She may as well have been holding her child’s head underwater. I had to tear the offending page out and banish it to the bin.
 
And on the other side of the Atlantic, I’m hearing stories of shoe valets at pool parties in the Hamptons. Where they apparently take your bejewelled beauties from your feet and provide everyone with identical pool shoes.
 
I don’t know what’s worse ... If I want to attend a party looking like every other person in the room, wearing standard-issue clogs, I’ll book into prison.
 
Vive la différence!
 
Footnote
 
Not that a SP needs an excuse, but  ...
 
If a shoe is available for retail purchase, it is technically ‘on sale’.

16. Tread Carefully

I am aware that I’m a freak. Not a weirdo-harm-to-society freak, but definitely an on-the-edge-of-mainstream kind of freak.

       
Like wearing vintage black-and-white polka-dot platforms to my free-dress day at school, aged eleven. Or being the only person in the City not doing coke on a Friday night (kiss of death to the shoe fund). But I have to say, this stay-at-home-mum gig (not the
most
fashionable lifestyle choice these days) is
really
testing my mettle.

       
So it’s no surprise that I jumped at Marco’s offer to pay me ‘in kind’ (a pair of shoes of my choice from his collection) for helping him to finish the shoes for
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
– as Ben’s snowed under with the set designs and unable to lend him a hand. And with a strict five-day deadline that coincided perfectly with Tim’s week home from India, it was too good to refuse.

       
Of course, Tim thinks I’m insane, slaving all day at home with Millie and then again late into the evening at Marco’s studio, and keeps moaning that we barely see each other. His hypocrisy is not completely lost on me – given the enormous amount of time I’m left on my own when he’s working. Plus it’s all good experience for me. Especially if I’m ever to get my mum shoes project off the ground.

       
Fi annoyingly greeted the news of my job with lukewarm enthusiasm. As if I was somehow trying to sabotage her precious ‘alone time’ with Marco. Her insecurity radars are on full alert at present, due to the fact that she’s in uncharted waters. This is the most serious relationship she’s ever been involved in, by far. And while I’ve always been hugely tolerant of Fi and her dating neuroses – diligently patching and fluffing up her ego and sending her back out into the fray – I just don’t seem to have the emotional capacity for them these days. Particularly as this is something that I
really
want to do, and an opportunity not to be missed.