When You Know, You Know.
Everyone remembers the white dress. I was looking at the shoes.
It was the first Sex and the City movie. That scene — the white dress, the giant hibiscus, Carrie doing what Carrie does. Worth noting that Whitney Houston wore the original version of that dress long before it showed up in Carrie’s closet. But that's not what I was focused on. It was the shoes. Black. Geometric cage straps. Dark and architectural and completely unlike anything else on screen. I didn't know who made them at the time. But I was going to find out.
Once I tracked down the designer (Dior, btw) the search began, and it took years. By that point I'd already shifted almost entirely to shopping resale and vintage and, honestly, I never looked back. There's only so many times you can walk into a store and see the same recycled prints, the same uninspired silhouettes, the same nothing that gets marked down sixty percent two months later because nobody wanted it. Resale opened up a completely different world. Color, print, silhouette, textiles I'd never find in Nordstrom. Designer pieces I could actually afford. And true vintage — which is almost always made better and lasts in a way that nothing new does anymore.
It also taught me a different kind of patience and intention when it came to shopping. I search in waves — look for a while, step back, let new inventory make its way online, come back with fresh eyes. When I find something I'm not ready to commit to, it goes into my favorites and sits there. Could be a week, could be months. I have things in my Poshmark favorites right now I've been watching for longer than I'd like to admit. But I've learned that if I still want something after time has passed, that means something. And if I've forgotten about it entirely, that means something too. I don't rush it.
The Diors kept popping up, but were never quite right. Wrong size, wrong condition, too far gone even for a good cobbler. When I finally found the right pair they did need a little love to return to their former glory. Friends — find yourself that good cobbler. You will not regret it. (Shoutout to Rossi's in Ardmore, PA!) More importantly, they were my size. Which, by the way, is a standing Pinstripe rule: if it's the only one in your size, the universe left it for you. ::Cue cash register sound::
There's a feeling that collectors know — the one you get when you find the rare baseball card at a garage sale, the quiet thrill of I actually found it. With clothes and shoes there's a whole extra layer because sizing makes it that much harder. When you find the exact piece you've been hunting and it's your size, after all the near misses and the ones that got away, it feels genuinely earned in a way that walking into a store and buying something off the rack never quite does.
Here's what I've come to understand about collecting this way: it was never really about the shoes. It's about knowing yourself well enough to recognize what belongs in your world the moment you see it — even on someone else's feet, on a movie screen, years before you ever own it.
The white dress is the icon. But I was always looking at the shoes.
When you know, you know.