Women and their (our) shoes

By Kate 

I did some decluttering the other day. Mainly the shoe cabinet.

There were many pairs which I don’t wear anymore and many more which I don’t even recall existed.

While clearing them, many seemed to looked like they won’t hold up anymore even if I started wearing them today. Shoes, unlike clothes, tend to get worn out much faster due to the usage and also, storing them for long without wearing them would often render them useless for various reasons, ranging from the soles falling off or certain parts falling apart. 

Many of those that I discarded were heels that I wore to work. However, since I got pregnant with Ally 3 years ago, I switched to wearing mainly flats. As such, many of those heels lay idle in the cabinet ever since. Even though I might have been back at work for almost two years, I realised that I am either wearing my trusty black heels or another pair of nudes to work these days. Both pairs worked well for me because they are comfortable, and easy to match any outfit. Now that every morning is a mad rush to work (after settling Ally), decision making on which-pair-of-shoes-I-should-go-with-my-outfit today is the last thing I need.

We don’t really need so many pair of shoes. After all, we only have one pair of feet. Women loves shoes. It’s irrational and I can’t explain it. However, we probably could pare down the number considering the occasions that we will need them.

Here’s a simple breakdown:

1. Work shoes: Weekdays are workdays and since we spent more than 70% of our week at work, it would make sense to dedicate more shoes for this purpose. We don’t need a new pair everyday but perhaps 2-3 pairs that could easily matched with any outfit would suffice. For example, I have a good pair of black and nudes. You could just keep the colours that easily match with 70% of the wardrobe and that would save you a lot of time from the decision making.
2. Leisure shoes: These are probably sneakers or easy slip-ons. You could wear them to the mall, visit a friend, a trip to the amusement part, etc. A good 1-2 pairs should do since we probably wear them only during weekends.
3. Gym shoes/ sporting shoes : These will be for a session to your regular gym or perhaps for a favourite sport you play, or even trekking shoes. A 1-2 pairs should suffice for this purpose, unless you are engaged in many different type of sports regularly and will need more than that.
4. Event shoes : These will be for mainly ad hoc events and occasions and could range from attending a wedding party, or a dinner function. Depending on how frequent you might engage in such events, you might want to think about how much you might like to invest in something this. However, I won’t think about owning more than 1 pair of this since it’s usage is quite inconsistent.
5. Miscellaneous – This could be anything else. I would think of slippers or sandals, items which we probably would wear often as well. Perhaps 1-2 pairs would suffice.

After tallying up the above, it’s still a good 10 pairs of shoes! We could probably trim it further based on our needs and requirements but for most women, this is probably just a third or less of what they currently own!

This is a good exercise to trim down to what you need. As explained in an earlier post, minimalism and decluttering is a journey. You do not need to declutter down to 2-3 pairs immediately. Do it at a pace that you are comfortable with, look at your needs and requirements and pare down from there. Review them perhaps every 3-6 months to see if you really need them. Perhaps just 1 good pair of work shoes would do? Or perhaps the gym shoes can double up as something else? It’s ultimately up to each individual to determine what is essential.