Round-toed shoes: What's the point
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, September 2, 2004

I stumbled, weeping, out of the shoe store on Newbury Street. Dropping to my knees, I raised my arms to the heavens and wailed to the fickle gods of fashion:
     ``Why, oh why, hast thou sent us high-heeled round-toe shoes for fall? Does thou wantest us to looketh like Betty Boop or Olive Oyl? Or liketh we are wearing orthopedic footwear?
     ``Dost thou not care that we have closets full of pointy-toed shoes? That some of us had our toes surgically shortened to wear Manolos? Art thou not watching `Sex and the City' reruns on TBS?''
     There was a crack of thunder, which I took as a sign that mine is not to question why, but rather to invest heavily in the new silhouette. I returned to the store, but I was surrounded by doubters:
     ``Round is one of my favorite shapes, just not for shoes,'' a skeptic said, casting off a round-toed pair. ``Doughnuts are round, most of my body is round, but shoes should be skinny - I live vicariously through them. Round-toed shoes would definitely make me look fat - not the doughnuts, the shoes.''
     I brushed her aside and approached another seeker: ``Why can't we all have the toes we want?'' she asked, slipping off her Peds. ``I like pointy and square.''
     I went up to another Doubting Blahnik. ``They're not even comfortable - it's like they're pointy inside. They hurt and they look stupid.''
     I feared for her. ``But you're going to be out of style,'' I warned. ``Doomed to the eighth circle of So Last Year.''
     ``I don't care about being out of style,'' she said, ``if the style's stupid.''
     In need of guidance, I called a guru, April Riccio, the public relations manager at Neiman Marcus, one of the city's shrines to high fashion.
     ``They're selling very well,'' she intoned. ``There's the whole feeling of glamour that is part of the fashion trend this season. The rounded-toe, high-heeled shoe is reminiscent of the ladylike shoes in the '40s and '50s.''
     ``Amen,'' I yelled, and as luck would have it, a convert happened by. She took my hand.
     ``In round-toed shoes,'' she began, ``you're Barbara Stanwyck leading whatshisname astray in `Double Indemnity,' or you're the dame with a heart of ice walking into the hard-boiled detective's office, about to sell him a bill of goods and break his heart, just like all the rest.
     ``Pointy-toed stilettoes say, `I'm a ballbuster, and a sexually aggressive one at that.' ''
     Round-toed shoes say, ``I'll let you hold the door, but I may plug ya with a .38.''
     The retro spirit was starting to move me. I pulled down the veil on my imaginary hat, squared my shoulders in my best Rosalind Russell, and headed, no, sashayed to the mall.