Comparative Status Symbols

A shoe store in New York City has been given its own zip code. I don't care one way or another about that. What caught my attention was the accompanying article in The LA Times in which New York women described their feelings toward shoes. Since the woman interviewed all happened to be in the shoe store, they probably already had an affinity for shoes and don't reflect the opinion of all New York women, but still.

The women interviewed related to Sex In The City's Carrie Bradshaw and her need for five hundred dollar shoes. Nothing else would do.

I don't understand that kind of thinking at all. Everyone I see wears reasonably priced tennis shoes or sandals. Even if someone wore five hundred dollar feathered stilettos, no one around here would be impressed.

The women justified their expensive taste in shoes as being a way of showing people " who they are." How silly is that? People in LA aren't so shallow as to judge others by the shoes they wear. That's what cars are for.