I don't profess to be a brand or label slave nor do I profess to be particularly fashionable, however I do know a good looking pair of shoes and I can pretty much hold my own when determining the quality of a pair of shoes however it has become more difficult of late.

 

I am a sucker for a well priced pair of ones and twos but what should you be really expecting for your $19.99 of filthy lucre? Where I live there are discount Jimmy Choo establishments aplenty, that's over and above the opportunity to pick up a decent pair from scooby doo's from the neighborhood Nordstrom Rack. About a year ago I picked up a couple of pairs of pretentious Pierre Cardin St Louis Blues from one of the local stores; I was lucky, they were large sizes, to suit my plates of meat and they had these silly chromed bits for pseudo buckles but I couldnt complain at the prices.

 

Now that I wear them more regularly and the weather has turned, they have shown their true worth.

 

When you buy a pair you generally buy them with some use in mind like dressing up, dancing, shuffling around the house, hiking or whatever. I have many pairs, some I enjoy wearing regularly (a comfy pair of loafers) and some I wear on special occasions. With the passage of time you discover which ones your mind is made up to wear more often than not. At the front door I have moccasins, sandals, two pairs of dress shoes and in the hall cupboard a pair of CATS and a pair of hiking boots. There are others of course but I will try not to bore with a full inventory.

 

Being in a lazy frame of mind at the moment, lace ups are not the flavor of the day so I am more set on slip ons. The PC's are slip ons, jet black, leather uppers and rubber soled. I am not really wild about the rubber soles, especially when they generate static charges but hey, they were cheap. Only thing I am finding though is that the soles are wearing away at an amazing rate! I am hard on shoes but I am not that hard, I dont run around the playground shuffling my feet generating a cloud of dust pretending to be a train, I just walk, I try to walk a lot too, I avoid the elevator in most instances and I try to walk wherever I need to go. In addition to becoming thin soled very soon, I have discovered that they are not waterproof! Ok, I am not expecting oil resistant soles and steel toecaps, but I am expecting a modicum of protection from the elements. 

I don't know what it takes to make a waterproof shoe but i can tell you that a lace up pair that I bought for $9.99 is super waterproof and has much harder (or hardier) soles than these pieces of junk.  Finally, on one pair, the toe ends have started to cave in, there is nothing more indicative of shoe quality than looking at someone wearing a pair of shoes with caved in toe caps. *sigh*  Given my experience with the $9.99 pair I am not prepared to accept that you 'get what you pay for" after-all I bought a pair of italian all leather ankle boots 7 years ago that I pretty much wore into the ground, so much so, that they developed hobo like holes in the soles, they cost me ten quid, so don't talk to me about price.

 

All I know is that I will probably get another 6 months out of these babes and then I will be done with them. I sure am glad I didn't pay the recommended $59.99 for them!