No shoes for you!

[blamebrampton]

Thanks to everyone who gave shoe suggestions yesterday. I now have a list of brands to look out for. Alas, Sydney really is not a place to shop for shoes, I think because everyone wears decorative flip flops or, for the mad, ugg boots.
 
But the next time I am in Melbourne I will be heading to Sole Devotion, 1 Degraves St Melbourne and 124 Greville Prahran, open seven days. They have Trippen and Fluevog and EVERYTHING! pushdragon and meredyth_13, you should go!

Alas, the shop that alleged to have Trippen in Sydney did not. But they did have Alistair Trung clothing. If I was tall and rich I would only wear his clothes, and if I was just rich I would still wear several pieces. Asian-inspired deconstruction in lovely fabrics. Yum! I may not wear an awful lot of fashion, but I appreciate it when it is well made. (And to be fair to him, the prices were steep but not awful given the amount of handwork, which is all done by accredited labour.)

My shoe shop experience went like this.
me: Hello, I would like some shoes
nice shoe shop lady: Certainly! Wander about the shop with me and point out styles you like.
me: I have stumpy manky feet, BTW.
nssl: Easy, we have loads of brands that cater for people like you.
me: Yay!
nssl: Right, I have an idea what you like. Let's measure your feet. Hmmm. Gosh, they are stumpy.
me: It's true.
nssl: Not to worry, I'll go and pull a few pairs for you. [comes back, sad face] There's only one pair in your size! [tries them on] Oooh, that's not good.
me: I look like a Mormon.
nssl: I was gong to say Amish. That's not the look we're going for here. Sorry.

She was a very nice shoe shop lady, though. I'll hold off until I can get down to Melbourne.

In other news, Georgia is still immensely depressing, and while Michael Phelps may have won the most gold medals, it is my considered opinion that he is not the Greatest Olympian Ever. Jesse Owens leaves him for dead for a start. Call me an old grouch, but being an Olympian used to mean a great deal more than just winning. Pierre de Coubertin would argue my point, I feel.

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I'll check out Trippen and Fluevog for you. My holy grail is a pair of heels that fit properly and can be walked in. If I find them, I'll pass it on! Shoe shopping sounds like a great plan, we should!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Post-war Draco dresses in Mennonite clothing, Harry confronts him: "I saw you, you hated it. You weren't working with Riddle, no one thinks you were, stop punishing yourself!"

Draco raises an eyebrow. "Potter, you berserker, have you not noticed how perfectly this black sets off my complexion?"

"Oh. Yes. Now that you mention it ..."

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

We buy all our Maple Syrup for the Mennonites who live done the road. :D

The most interesting thing I've seen is a family of Mennonites at a garage sale loading up a washing machine to their horse and buggy.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Ok, honest is great. But if anyone ever agreed with me so ... bluntly, I think I would burst out laughing. :D

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

*will kiss your right foot if you find them and they work for me too*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Australia is the first place a shop assistant ever said to me, "Oh sweetie, you're too short to wear anything we sell ..."

It was quite, true, BTW. I think they feel that they'd rather not waste your time. On the upside, Australia is also the only place where I have had shop assistants and, indeed, managers, give me lists of other shops (not their brand) where I would be likely to find clothes I liked and fitted. It's looked on as being a sort of collective enterprise over here.

It does work better for me than the young English shopgirls who would say "yeah, that looks really good" for dresses that had their waists at my hips and shoulders falling off. I would always try and find an older shop lady who would look and just shake her head slightly and say "I think that is not ideal."

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you don't want to do that, but you could buy me a hot chocolate ;-)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

*giggles* I wish sales ladies here were as honest as her!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I find lots of them over here. Though I have to admit that I start by treating them as normal people, so that's what I get back!

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

Okay, if that is what you would prefer. But if they are in high heeled shoes, I might leer at them. *snicker*

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Oh, gotta love honest sales people! It always makes me want to come back to that store because you know they won't sell you crap.

I want to see those stumpy feet! I'll reciprocate by showing you my crooked toes that don't seem to have any muscle; even if I ... what's it called when you do the toe equivalent of making a fist? Anyway, that, they're completely loose and odd. Not much of a show compared to yours, I grant you, but I'll contribute what I can.

[annes-stuff.livejournal.com]

You haven't seen the range of colours they have.

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

Well, I would go, if a certain woman got her arse to Melbourne, cause I don't shop easily. Not that I spend money on shoes, but I'm a great enabler of other's spending.

Have you considered the ancient art of foot binding? *g*

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

You've already started the darkfest fic? I'm still waiting for my quote.

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Sorry for butting in but...

there's no WAY draco would allow anyone to slice him open with a scalpel to remove an organ. how barbaric.

If there's a will, there's a way! XD

hm lessee... amnesia? Forced to live as Muggle? No magical cure and his mother cried! Kidnapped by organ dealers? He's been in an attack, got Petrified, and the Muggles thought he was dead and removed his kidney because they needed a donor and then Draco woke up on the operating table with his stomach wide open... so they needed to give him another. Actually, I think there was a movie in which a white bloke got the heart of a black bloke (or the other way 'round?) and was forced to endure his ghost and change his opinion about other races or something? Just because Draco could get a Muggle's organ... :P

But yea, I second BB. I'd totally want to read that magical operation fic, too!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I'm cheating a bit. I have a few scenes I know I want to write, and which are adaptable to a number of storylines. So I am writing those scenes while I wait to find out what the story will be. This is not as bad as my AS/S fest fic which I wrote entirely around a single joke, modifying everything else to fit the giftee's list.

As a professional editor I am duty bound to say that This Is Not A Good Way To Do Things ;-) (but I don't care!)

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Haha Have I told you how much I love reading through the comments to your posts? Now I have this awful AU in my head in which the Dursleys were Amish (or the British equivalent, anyhow)...

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

...or, as an alternative: the whole wizarding world is Mennonite... it's not like they'd have to change their dress code and technological level that much, right?

*imagines Lucius and Narcissa...ahahahaha! can't even complete that thought!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I think they'd have to be Scottish to have that level of religious mania in the UK, though there were some crazy cults back in the 50s and 60s, Jeanette Winterson grew up in one, I think ... but they weren't cool and dour and black wearing ;-)

You know I'd read it!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHAHA! And the wireless is frowned upon! His love for technology is the real reason everyone frowns on Arthur Weasley!

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Hehe I do that, too, sometimes (not this time) but those scenes usually don't feature in my final version - not for lack of trying. There was one time I've tried (too hard) to fit them in and I know it's a baaaaad thing. The result wasn't pretty.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I have my fingers crossed for a prompt that will fit one of the three our four stories I have in my head that will fit these scenes. Otherwise I'll fit them into the Remus/Sirius epic that is fermenting in the back of my messy brain!

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

XD I'd like to read that one, too! Unfortunately, I don't have the religious background to write it. (And there aren't people like that in my neighbourhood at all... if I had to guess, I'd say there are none of those in the whole country.) Perhaps I'll make a prompt out of it for a future fest. Although, I think it would be best as a comic because half the hilarity is the clothes. :P

Yes, it would be more understandable that Mrs Weasley can't abide by Arthur's weird fascination with Muggles...

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is, I don't think I've ever read an R/S fic. But I think I'd read it if it were by you.

I'm still waiting for the reveal at the ass fest to be able to read your fic. I've realised that AS/S is all right as long as I don't have anything H/D to read, but I just can't connect with the next gen characters on the same level as with H/D, so I've given up wading through all those fics until I get to yours. And, btw, I blame you alone for getting me into the GO fandom - however inadvertently - which has occupied the majority of my reading time for the last two or how many months and it doesn't look like I'd get bored of it anytime soon. :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I'd feel guilty about that, except that too much Good Omens is never enough! (I should probably read some fic one day, but I know it would eat my brain, too.)

The ASS fest reveals are any day now, I'll repost here once they come out. I feel as though I've been waiting for months ... but I've read some truly brilliant ones by others!