Being a third generation Southern Californian, I never thought I'd say this, but here it is: I am so sick of the flip-flop.
Some of my earliest memories about being excited about buying clothing had to do with the annual trip to the Sanrio store (Hello Kitty for the uninitiated) to pick out the pair of flip-flops that I would wear all summer, to the pool for swimming lessons, and the beach. I still have immediate recall of the man-made scent of that thick pink wafer of rubber, which mnemonically leads straight on to the combining aromas of chlorinated pool water, salt air, sunscreen, and smoke from the beach shack grill, joyously proclaiming: SUMMER IS HERE!
That was back when I enjoyed clothes for the sense of wonderment they caused in me, for the excitement I felt when something spoke to me. My goodness I loved Hello Kitty! And look, I could have her on my FEET! And--MY SHOES COULD BE PINK! Going to college in the Rocky Mountains, where it snowed my freshman year in October and didn't stop until June, I wore my flip-flops as a badge of honor, an emblem of my "ethnicity." When my roommate queried me as to why I was wearing a polo with a wool sweater, jeans, a jacket and a scarf...and flip flops...I didn't realize it was so unusual! I had only recently seen Amber Valletta pairing them with a men's suit and tee shirt while attending a black tie event in the social reporting section of Vogue. The only time I considered not wearing them during those years was after I went line dancing in them and (because I have no talent for structured dance routines--I need to be free form, people!) got trod on by cowboy boots.
Diana Vreeland wrote in her memoirs, D. V., about the rhapsody that can occur between a girl and her sandals. Hers were hand-crafted on Capri circa 1935: "The theory of the sandals was that the sandal strap went between the toes. The soles of these sandals were so beautiful. They were built up in layers thinner than my fingernail--layer upon layer." Ooh Diana, I knew YOU would understand! And then one day, flip-flops were everywhere I went. And I slowly but surely began my descent into disenchantment. Flip-flops weren't an organic expression of my environment anymore. They were just more proof that Americans are becoming lazy. In this case, too lazy to wear shoes that require socks. And so my irritation grew. As in all relationships, what you initially love about someone can become the biggest annoyance about them. So help me I saw people wear flip-flops to church! This wasn't Ms. Valletta's deft tweaking of the status quo by a fashion insider, this was apathy on a grand scale.
And I wanted no part of it. This summer, the gladiator sandal is back, making appearances in such un-Mediterranean climes as suburban London in April, on the feet of style makers like Gwyneth Paltrow. But where the flip-flop is straightforward, there are many permutations of the gladiator sandal. Gwyneth's gold gladiators, by Giuseppe Zanotti, look great on her, but what about short women like me? Doesn't encasing the whole foot make us look shorter? The similarly styled gladiator sandals I tried on at H & M certainly did. The braided t-bar sandals from Stella McCartney certainly have a more delicate ankle strap, but do the big thick silver braids overpower smaller feet? And can you wear metallics without a pedicure? I think not. This look is much more difficult to pull off well than it might initially appear.
And then I found the answer to my current fashion conundrum where I usually do: in something Anita Pallenberg wore. Holding her baby Marlon and wearing a mini, in the south of France with Mick and Keith, thin golden strapped gladiator sandals sinuously silhouette her fantastic legs. This is not a woman in the Georgian buckled flats of the sixties, or the platforms of the seventies, both decades which were heavily influenced by her style. This is a style maverick bucking the trends, wearing gladiator sandals when no one else was. Maybe that's when I'll wear them too.
