Every week a different FADER staff member will pick a clothing item or accessory that he or she has lately been spending a lot of time with—or would like to—and write a little love letter to it. We would’ve done a column on who we’re dating but that seemed a little bit much. This week Erin writes about her sweet 8020 Sadie wedges and how her mom got jealous of them.
When I first moved to New York, my mother sent me a box of shoes from California that I had packed and labeled "Shoes: First," a title that referenced not just the sequence I wanted to receive each of the three boxes but also an indication to the hierarchy of my favorite shoes. When I received a bulky box containing about fifteen pairs of my top tiers, I stuffed them in a bag for easier transportation and headed home on the train. Now I've heard at least a few horror stories in my life of people falling asleep on the train and losing their wallet, phone, backpack or what have you, and I have to be thankful that at least nothing truly horrible happened. But MAN, I fell asleep on the train for two hours(!) and woke up at one in the morning shoeless except for the sneaks on my feet.
It's because of this traumatic experience that my shoe game has had a slow revival and tight edit over the last two years. I'm not really picky—there are tons of shoes that I love and cannot afford/walk in. I like to think the reason for the turnaround is that I'm sensible when it comes to my shoe purchases now. Enter the 8020 cork platforms which cost near to nothing, can easily be worn for over 12 hours (which is kind of a requirement for me) and add a nice couple inches to my legs. The shoes come in a range of colors from brights to darks (I have them in seafoam and eggplant), but the real reasons I like them are the ’70s revival style and the twist of weird they add to the shoe line up in my bedroom. Now, I just have to pray these kicks stick around and don't get sacrificed to the train gods anytime soon.