are you forgetting the ruby slippers?

First, thank you for your sweet comments. I just finished The Help last night and I'm on a roll about amazing women and the strength we get from our friendships (and, conversely, how painful when we're friends with the wrong women). I just can't get over how supportive everyone is with each other. We have our real lives, and sometimes, if it works geographically, our blog friends are also our real friends, but also to have this rich inner life.. I love it. I also love this scene:



We all need more friends like Glenda, the Good Witch. And less of the Wicked Witch.

So I met a new lovely woman the other day - Andrea. Short blond hair, cute, great style - and then I saw her shoes! They're an Italian brand. I'm so glad - as is she - that the classic pump is back in business. For me, it never left. You can make it the accent, the jewel, like Andrea did, with a pair of skinny jeans.. there is nothing better, in terms of power, than a woman showing up to a business meeting in these kind of heels. Whenever Kate Hepburn had to go head to head with studio execs, she wore her highest heels and towered above them. More like head to chest. It's a highly effective power play.

You have probably noticed, I'm not keen on red EXCEPT for these kind of iconic red shoes. I have a pair, they're patent, I bought them in an East Village vintage shop right after college when I lived in NY. Wore them once, to a club, couldn't dance in them, kicked them off, danced barefoot, met my then boyfriend, and later, when it was time to leave, had kind of a Cinderella moment (eventually found them UNDER a couple, snogging on a pile of coats, like the Princess and the Pea. My shoes being the peas. Oh never mind).

That was the only time I wore them. They then became an entity in their own right: I started carrying them on trips to exotic places, shooting them in various settings.. started writing a film about them.. (and yet, I've never seen the Red Shoes, how weird is that).

Thank you also - you know who you are - for sending images and stories of 'home'. I'll be posting on that soon, too. Oh speaking of home away from home: Andrea is going to my other virtual home, Italy - Rome and Sardinia, to be specific - for holiday. If anyone has any tips for either place, please let me know and I'll pass it onto her.

It's funny, when I looked for something on the Ruby Slippers, I forgot all about this scene:




Have a lovely Bank Holiday Weekend, dear friends, and remember, there's no place like home.