A woman's right to shoes

Jan 11 2007 by Jane Gallagher, Liverpool Daily Post

Carrie Bradshaw famously once said: 'I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes'. Here, Jane Gallagher looks at the female obsession with footwear

HOW many shoes have you got hiding in the wardrobe? Or maybe they are stuffed away under the bed?
 
Or are they neatly labelled in clear, plastic boxes with photographs of each pair taped to the outside?
 
That is how Louise Kissack stores her prized collection of shoes. All 60 pairs of them!
 
Yes, Louise, a project manager for a large construction company, is the proud owner of a shoe collection, which could some day rival that of infamous shoe hoarder, Imelda Marcos.
 
Louise may seem extreme, but more than 2.5m women are halfway to the same figure.
 
According to a new report by the retail analysis company Mintel, around 10% of the female population own enough pairs of shoes to wear a different pair every day of the month.
 
Another 5m, like myself, own more than 16 pairs.
 
So why do I, a 40-year-old mother-of-four who spends most of her time sat at a computer writing, walking the dog, going to the gym or playing with the kids, own 10 pairs of impossibly high heels?
 
Mintel says it is a simple case of availability. More stores now stock high fashion shoes; even the supermarket, and they are a lot cheaper, too.
 
That and the "Carrie Bradshaw" effect, where the star of the Sex In The City series spent as much time mooning over her Manolos as she did men. One memorable episode showed Carrie begging a mugger to take her expensive jewellery but leave her shoes.