Tuesday is Shoesday is Choo’s Day

(This post dedicated to Kak Teh's shoemaker friend who always forgets names ...)

I have beautiful feet. Honestly.

Actually my feet are the only part of my body that is really beautiful, the only part of me that people exclaim over and that I’m a little vain about. (I have been told that they should pursue a modeling career. Never mind that the rest of me might be jealous.)

They’re long and slim and elegant. Without bunion or corn, callous or verucca. I pamper them with pedicures, slather them with lotion, have pictures painted on my big toes. Delicate spring flowers, intricate abstracts, gold Chinese characters for prosperity at new year, holly at Christmas, feng-shui goldfish in a pond, and the Citibank logo for the Litfest last year. (Maybe I should hire my big toes out as advertising space as that woman did with her stomach on e-bay some time ago?) Alice at Cut Above is my miniaturist working in the medium of toe nails, and I leave my feet in her hands (“Decide for me, will you? Just go with what your heart tells you.”) while Felix tinkers with my hair (a hopeless case).

But no matter how I love my feet, me and shoes (or should that be “shoes and I”?) have had a long and troubled relationship.

When I was a kid, my father insisted that I wear Tuff shoes. They were black, unisex (before all things unisex became fashionable in the 1960’s), and irredeemably ugly. They were, as the name might suggest, strongest, toughest pair of shoes on the market. They were so tough that they came with a guarantee. If you could wear them out before the six-month guarantee was up, then you were entitled to a free pair. The manufacturers felt they were on safe ground

My father, ever thrifty, would eye the calendar. And when we’d had our shoes for five and a half months he took us to the children’s playground with instructions to scrape our toes on the ground as we swung on the swings, and scuff them on the tarmac as we rode the roundabout and witches hat, and go for a wade in them in the paddling pool.

He would then march us back to the shoes shop and thrust our scuffed, battered shoes at the assistant along with the guarantee card. “Just look at these,” he’d declare “can’t even stand up to normal wear and tear. I insist that you change them.”

And thus we got our new brand new pair of Tuff shoes, and the six month cycle began again.

My sister asserted her independence one day and threw a tantrum in the shop until she was allowed to choose her own shoes. Three hours and several dozen tryings-on later, she emerged victorious with a dainty little pair of black patent pumps. I was not as well-versed in the feminine wiles as Tess, and continued to wear Tuff shoes for much longer.

When I did finally win the freedom to chose my shoes for myself, I found that I had very little choice available to me anyway. My feet might be beautiful, but they were also big. British size 8½. And in those days the shops catered almost entirely for the average. (Now, fortunately, this has changed.) I scuffed around it trainers, and clomped along in wooden Scholls.

And when I came to Malaysia, where the population is that much smaller, the situation was much worse. I found myself having to buy all my shoes on my trips back to Britain, and then hoarding them up like a miser until my next trip back.

That was before I met MY Jimmy Choo.

My Jimmy Choo was not a Choo at all. He was Mr. Leong and he operated his business from his home off Old Klang Road.

Every Tuesday he used to come to our college, between the assembly period and the mid-morning break, and take our orders for new shoes. And when he arrived the cry would go up: “It’s Tuesday so it’s shoes day. Must be Jimmy Choo’s day.”

First he needed an accurate measurement. I remember my students giggling one morning from behind the shelves as Mr. Leong, having tracked me down to the library knelt at my feet, placed my feet one by one on a big sheet of paper and drew round them. He then took some measurements with a piece of string. Finally, I got to choose the exact design of shoes I wanted from his plastic folder, in which he had collected pages from shoe catalogues. He could also copy your favourite pair of shoes, faithful to the last detail. He spread out too the leather samples of all colours and textures. (I did though have to wait a long time for gold shoes, until he had enough customers wanting the same to make it worth his while for him to buy a whole piece of leather.) And all this for a price so reasonable that I would blush if I were to convert it back to pounds sterling. (Though I always had to pay a little more because my feet needed more leather to cover them.)

When the shoes finally came, a week or a fortnight later they were beautifully crafted to our individual designs. We’d try them on, parade around the staffroom in them for the admiration of others, work completely forgotten, meetings abandoned, classes delayed just a little. And I learned for the first time in my life, something that my smaller-footed friends have always known ... beautiful shoes are SEXY!

I have pairs of Mr. Leong’s shoes in almost every colour of the rainbow in a rack in my cupboard; a perfect match for every outfit.

And I hoard them like a miser.