April 2025
There are those of us who don’t like much attention and who prefer to glide through life quietly and unobtrusively, without making a ripple.
I’m told that such people exist. Almost everyone I know, however—a whole crowd of us— hopes to stand out from the crowd. We all seek validation and approval for something, some talent or skill or athletic prowess that we alone possess, and for which we want recognition. We all want to be different, unique.
One way to achieve a certain individuality is to wear something distinctive, something people always associate with you. One friend has been wearing the same casually elegant silver earrings for decades. They are part of her identity. When she recently lost one, she had it duplicated by a jeweler.
Years ago, a feminist friend began wearing a necklace that consists of a small silver fist on a chain. Shortly afterward, on her thirtieth birthday, I gave her a silver bird on a chain to wear with the fist and soften the look. The decades roll on, and she still wears them both, ying and yang.
Another friend always wears a dark beret. I think of it as her trademark beret. I have never seen her in any other kind of hat, and I have rarely seen the top of her head without that insouciant piece of felt. She isn’t French, but it’s her look.
As for me, I have taken to wearing red cowboy boots. I bought them at a Western store in a suburb near mine in December 2020, during the pandemic. Just when everyone was wearing sneakers if they left the house at all, I bought these gaudy boots with an inch and a half heel. At five-foot three, I can use a little height, and at my great age, I can use a little flash, which white tooling on red leather now provide.
Friends, it took a while to break those boots in, but I was determined. I wore them in the sun and I wore them in the rain, and I even wore them, foolishly, in the snow (they do not have great traction). After some months they became genuinely comfortable.
Now when I go to Manhattan, I often walk several miles in them. Usually in the course of the day, somebody comments on them. They want to know where I got them. They tell me they look great. They ask if they’re comfortable, because they come to a point beyond the tips of my toes. It’s cheerful banter, communication from strangers, a little connection without the threat that street attention often carries, or carried, for women. I think there’s a lot less street harassment going on now anyway, which is a boon.
Without exactly knowing why, I do think my red boots are sexy. So I was pleased when a cool young saleswoman in a clothing store said, “You should be arrested wearing those!” If a man had said the same thing, I’d be worried, but when men comment on my boots it’s always with respect.
Perhaps there’s a certain safety in remarking upon footwear, as opposed to other pieces of clothing, such as a shirt or a pair of pants, which might draw attention to the breasts or hips they enclose. But you can comment upon boots without implicitly assessing the feet they encase. Boots are fair game. They are safe.
Nonetheless, at a time of life when safety and ease inform many of my choices, my red boots still feel edgy. That must be why I like them.
November 2024
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Readers, if you like this post, throw me a heart! It’s important for The Algorithm and helps attract new people. Comments are even better! Do you have a signature item of clothing?
And/or, you can buy the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir. Guess what I’m wearing on the back cover?
March 2024
https://www.amazon.com/Just-Yes-Tenth-Anniversary-Catherine-Hiller/dp/195647465X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=H0YY7OKSJMGG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YK4LiMwd-se6a5VjHpBvRWF8cuZCMs7krC-mp6N4m_jGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.SY2q96sn_gaNC65VB4Fa9f9tqErMWwSy0wj1CgN8mag&dib_tag=se&keywords=just+say+yes+catherine+hiller&qid=1749554327&s=books&sprefix=just+say+yes+catherine+hille%2Cstripbooks%2C246&sr=1-1
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Your red boots are fantastic! Vivid and compelling, like you.
I have a boot thing. Remember the Chelsea boots Timothee Chalamet wore in A complete unknown? I had a brown leather pair like those specially made. I was a schoolboy in London about 17 years of age. How did I afford them? I forget. We were not well off and I think I might have scrounged the money from odd jobs. For me the style dates back to the Mods of the late 50s who immortalized very slim black boots and drainpipe trousers. I think mine had zippers. In my fifties, 20 years ago, I asked a friend to bring back a pair of brown boots from Spain, and she did so. Of course I paid her but how generous is that, carrying a big cardboard box with these beautiful rough brown boots? Now if I wear them they fit so snugly I have to strain every muscle in my chest to get them off. So instead I have two pairs of Chelsea boots with elastic down the sides. One harks back to the Mods but in brown suede, the others in Timberland gold. They’re a great way to make a statement. And they are right to be called Chelsea boots. They absolutely reek of 1960s London. Now, the fashion has swung to Australia’s Blundstone brand. Rough and tough. Strong enough to wear round the sheep farm.