4-29-2010

Today I had a pretty busy, long day. I had a 7:30 meeting, which I dressed up for but at 4:15, when I realized that I was going to be at work for at least another hour and a half, I sort of snapped and I changed into gym clothes even though I wasn't planning on going to the gym. So I don't have a picture of my fancy meeting outfit. But these are the shoes I wear with my gray Ann Taylor "meeting dress" and my black Calvin Klein "meeting dress".

A "meeting dress" is a fake category of dress which I made up to denote a dress that you can wear with a blazer and wear to a meeting. It's slightly less dressy than an actual suit but it's still more dressy than "business casual".

Back to the shoes:

High, high heels are one of the only "sexy" things you can get away with in a work environment. The plainer the rest of the shoe, the higher the heel can be without it looking inappropriate. The rest of these shoes are about as plain as it can get and the heel is pretty much the highest I'd consider wearing (about 4.25").

But I want to be clear: I don't wear them because I want to be sexy. I wear them because I want to be a ferocious amazon woman. Heels are a power trip! Until you fall on your face...but I usually don't do that anymore...

They are from some new off shoot of the Jessica Simpson brand called "JS by Jessica Simpson". I can't find any online explanation as to what this new branch is all about. Not sure if she is trying to go for a "Steven by Steve Madden" approach? That "spin off" has been very successful and "Boutique 9 by Nine West" also seems to be doing well. I'm a fan of the "slightly better quality" brand offshoots because you can usually find the designs from these lines on websites such as endless.com and shoes.com for nearly the same prices as the shoes from the central brand. It's only in stores that they are noticeably more expensive. Contrarily, I really, really don't like "Madden Girl", which is the only brand offshoot I'm aware of whose niche is producing shoes that are noticeably less well made than the original brand's shoes.

Anyhoo, these shoes are by Jessica Simpson just like 75% of the rest of my boots and pumps. I've really got to talk to that girl - I think it's high time she gave me an endorsement deal.