Shoe and tell: Women step out with fancy footwear club
By
Jill Radsken
/ Sense of Style
Boston Herald Fashion Reporter
Thursday, December 21, 2006 - Updated:
03:30 AM EST
I
t started as a joke.
Melissa O’Shea invited her girlfriends to get together at Dali in Somerville - sangria and such - and wear their favorite shoes.
But the 35-year-old from Medford underestimated how seriously women take their footwear. The gathering led to a parade of great shoes, a contest and awards for top shoe honors.
“I feel like I accidentally stumbled on something that’s a great idea,” said O’Shea, who officially launched Shoe Club shortly after that July 2004 night.
Now there are monthly get-togethers, usually at restaurants or stores, and an e-mail list of 130 shoeaholics. All events are open to the public, and O’Shea’s effort to keep events strictly social also means no fees.
If a recent event at the Oxford Street Grill in Lynn was any indication, Shoe Club girls have sole. The 15 women, ranging in age from 20-something to 50-something, chatted up the bar crowd before settling down for German bistro fare.
Barbara Beaudin, an old friend of O’Shea’s with an 80-pair shoe wardrobe, described herself as “the frugal one” in the group.
She recalled how she came to own the pair of paisley boots she wore - a $20 bargain that called to her at the most unsuspecting of times.
“I was picking up Chinese food for a lunch meeting and it wasn’t ready,” she recalled. “So I went to the shoe store next door.”
The shoes at the Lynn gathering were as varied as their owners. Some came from DSW; others were left over from a summer wedding. Vintage lover Lisa DiMatteo wore a pair of modified T-strap lame Mary Janes from the 1960s that she found on Cape Cod, while O’Shea’s childhood friend Debbie Mellor was hardly the wallflower in her saucy blue velvet Miu Mius.
“Melissa’s taught me the passion,” said Mellor, who lives in Arlington. “It’s like a book club where you don’t get in trouble for not reading the book.”
And the stakes - er, stilettos - are getting higher. The event brought out Powderhouse Productions, a local video company working on a project for a popular cable channel. And last month, Barneys New York in Boston invited the footwear aficionados’ group to a private sale. Women nibbled pastries from silver trays while getting Black Friday sale prices two weeks before the public.
“I’m hoping to do it with them every season; hopefully word of mouth will let it spread,” said Jamie Freed, manager of women’s shoes at Barneys.
Back at the Oxford Street Grill, O’Shea was sporting the leopard-print Manolo Blahniks she bought at Barneys last month, still giddy about the purchase.
“I had to conference-call my husband and agree this would be my Christmas present for the next 100 years,” she joked. “I love these shoes.”
Grill owner Lowell Gray and Bob DeLisle, a self-described shoe admirer, took on the tough task of judging the shoe parade.
DeLisle, a local real estate agent, declared Rachel Elias’ gold slingbacks as “too aggressive.”
“Those pointy, pointy shoes are out,” he said.
Alison Rourke’s faux-fur ankle boots earned higher praise from judges, but Barbara Beaudin’s paisley boots were the clear winner.
“They might even be lined,” Beaudin cooed.
“Oh, don’t tease us,” DeLisle shot back.
Beaudin took her grand prize, a gift certificate to the restaurant, back to her table and announced that the shoe club gives her the perfect excuse to keep her shoe fanatacism going.
“It’s just so much fun, and I can buy shoes I could never wear anywhere,” she said.
O’Shea also has grand dreams to do good with the Shoe Club. She hopes to hold a 1-mile run in high heels down
Newbury Street
to benefit the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis, the nonprofit agency where she is development director.
O’Shea estimates her own collection is 150 strong.
“This definitely fills a need for a lot of women,” she said.
For more information, go to www.shoeclub.us.
- jradsken@bostonherald.com
|
|
Linda Moraski in work boots and Genesis Tan in pumps go toe to toe at a recent Shoe Club event at Lynn’s Oxford Street Grill. (Staff photo by Douglas McFadd)
|
|
