I Want Those Shoes! - Hardcover

Jacobbi, Paola

3.04

106 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743277740 ISBN 13: 9780743277747

Publisher: Scribner, 2007

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

"Shoes possess magical properties," writes Italian journalist and shoe fanatic Paola Jacobbi. The allure of shoes is so powerful that they have become her fashion obsession, one she shares with millions of women, from Imelda Marcos to Sarah Jessica Parker to Joan Crawford.

Here Jacobbi indulges that obsession by embarking on a witty and highly opinionated journey through the styles and cultural significance of women's footwear and our attachment to it. Jacobbi pontificates (sandals are the bikini of footwear); psychoanalyzes (the relationship between shoes and sex); has fiery beliefs (ankle boots are quite simply a no-no); and speculates (there's a little Imelda in all of us). She also offers plenty of sage advice: how to choose the right heel for your physique, how to keep shoes lasting long, why to avoid mules at all costs, and how to judge a man by his footwear.

Charming, sassy, and irresistible, I Want Those Shoes! will be a perfect fit for every woman who has ever coveted, rearranged her closet to accommodate, or maxed out her credit card for one more absolutely-gotta-have-it pair of shoes.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Paola Jacobbi is a journalist and special correspondent for Italian Vanity Fair. She lives in Milan.

Sujean Rim is an illustrator whose work is often seen on DailyCandy. She lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this collection of brief essays, journalist Jacobbi misses by at least two seasons the "One can never have too many shoes!" era roughly bracketed by Imelda Marcos on one end and the finale of television's Sex in the City on the other. Passing up the opportunity to examine that phenomenon, or to document the history of women's footwear, Jacobi instead focuses on familiar observations and glib, sitcom-ready aphorisms: "In the end that's what shoes are: our best friends." Jacobbi considers a dozen types of women's shoes with writing that's not only shallow and uninformative, but strange and occasionally indecipherable: "Usually the collector of ankle boots looks down on the 'shoe' shoe, the 'skirt' skirt and the woman who dresses too much like a woman." Those who spent the last 15 years barefoot will be interested to find out that "music, in particular hip-hop culture, has launched and continues to launch ever newer and hipper models of athletic shoes"; similarly, long-divorced Nicole Kidman is reported, more than once, to be happier in heels than she was in her marriage to diminutive first husband Tom Cruise. Even Jacobbi's rules for "Happy Feet" are antiquities; aside from Sujean Rim's lovely illustrations, footwearphiles will find most of this shoe-gazing material old hat.
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.