The Honest Courtesan

It probably won’t surprise anyone who’s been reading my work for a few years when I tell you that I’m very particular about my clothes.  I’ve often said that fashion is for people who have no sense of style, and there must be an awful lot of them because every time fashions change, it becomes nearly impossible for me to get new clothes if the current fashion does not fit my style.  What that means right now is that I’m being driven to distraction by my inability to replace my favorite pair of boots.  I bought them in 2018 or thereabouts after finding them practically brand new in a Goodwill; similar leather knee boots tend to run in the vicinity of $200, but I got these for ten bucks, probably because they were mis-sized (but fit my feet perfectly).  They were comfortable and beautiful and I got compliments every time I wore them, but six years of Pacific Northwest weather will eventually ruin any footwear, and of course that style has been discontinued by the manufacturer.  Nor can I find anything similar: while my boots have smooth, clean lines, every damned pair I can find is festooned with fake buckles or piecework; while I like a full-length zipper, many boots now have those idiotic half-zippers; while I like a rounded toe, most of the one I see now have uncomfortable pointy toes or unfeminine, Frankensteinish square toes; while I like a tapered but not stiletto heel, it seems “chunky” heels are now in fashion.  It’s not as bad as those awful peg heels which were popular about 25 years ago, but bad enough.  So I guess I’m stuck with wearing some of my other, less-favored old boots until endless hours of haunting thrift stores at last turns up something I can live with, that doesn’t make me want to throw them at the designer.