My Fluevog Obsession

In honor of the newest addition to my Fluevog family I thought I'd do a post about one of my favorite things in the world. If you guessed cheese you know me pretty well, but my other favorite thing is Fluevog shoes. I scored this awesome pair of "slightly too big, but I don't care I'm still going to wear them anyway" shoes yesterday at one of my secret thrift shops (which shall remain nameless because if I told you I'd have to kill you). They're orange Safety Vogs that have 3M insets around the heel and on the strap and they couldn't be any more suited to me. Well, unless they were a 1/2 size smaller...



My shoe obsession started with my discovery of punk somewhere around the 10th grade. That was somewhere around 1985 (OK it was 1985), so you can go ahead and do the math if it makes you happy... Most of my shoes back then came from I Goldberg - the army navy store that sold combat boots for I think about $25 bucks or so. I also combed thrift stores where I favored men's buckle shoes I could find in different colors for $3-$5 (red & navy were a favorite) with square toes and wing tip styling. I mostly found these in West Philly. They were the discards of old black men who favored well tailored suits and gentlemanly hats. Their shoes had probably frequented Jazz bars more that Dag Nasty shows, but I loved them and wore them literally into the ground. Sadly, I never find these anymore, but I would still wear them if I did.

My next foray was into the world of Dr Martens. The ubiquitous shoe for the late 80's (and before & after) punk rocker. My friends and I would take trips to the East Village in New York to stores like 99X where we could choose from any color under the sun of Doc boots. My preferred style was cherry red ankle high. It was after years of punk rock sameness wearing Docs that I discovered Fluevogs sometime in college. I can't remember where I first saw them, but my first pair were Angels - black ankle high boots with super comfy soles and a swirl on the side. I have since gone through 3 pairs of these boots, the last of which by all rights deserve to be in the trash, but I save for events like putting silver coating on my roof. To say I'm hard on shoes would be an understatement...




While I may have started with black, the thing I love about Fluevogs, aside from them being wearable and comfortable, is all the amazing colors they come in. I don't know why so few companies have mastered the art of making both cute and comfortable shoes!




It was on to cowboy style slip-ons which you can also see I have worn to death.
The one problem is you can't really find shoe polish for shoes which over the years have turned from avocado green to mustard yellow. I at one point had them in the trash, and then took them back out again. And yes, my mother did specifically request that I not show up for dinner wearing the mustard pair since "it wasn't that kind of place where that would be acceptable". Got it, mom.




I found the wood soled green and white pair on Melrose Ave in LA, and the green with yellow ties in a shoe store in Atlanta somewhere. Vacations are my best time to get Fluevogs since Philly sadly is not exactly a mecca for shoe shopping.




I found the red and blue Aimee shoes in Boston years ago and they're really getting worn out. I would love to find another pair of these in pretty much any colorway. The green and brown Zaza Minis are my latest addition before the orange pair I found yesterday. I have never been able to stand in heels and let me tell you, these are amazing! Not only are they easy to walk in, but I can actually stand up in them for hours. That's saying a lot for a girl who usually has a 1" limit on heels. I just ordered them in purple and orange because as I've discovered if you find a favorite Fluevog you have to get them while you can cause once they're gone, they're gone and you'll be hunting on eBay forever trying to find the ones that got away.