The Story of My First Balenciaga

I have along story for you today, I hope you have time :-). It's the story of my first pair of Balenciaga shoes and I want to tell this story with all the details that it takes and that they deserve. Please bear with me ;-).

When we were in LA, we visited the new annex of the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) at the Pacific Design Center. This building is fairly new (I am pretty sure it wasn't there the last time that I was in LA) and, as we learned, only hosts temporary exhibitions. To see the permanent collection you have to go downtown where the main MOCA is located.
The building, basically a cube with no windows, reminded me of the buildings in a painting by De Chirico, probably because we visited in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon and the building gives on a Plaza that was quite empty and the particular light and shadow of the building on the plaza at that time of the day gave the whole scenery a dream-like feeling, like the time had stopped (I won't lecture you on De Chirico but his paintings really strike a cord with me, as well as his poet counterpart, Emilio Montale, my favorite Italian poet).
Anyway, they were hosting a exhibit of graphic artist Stefan Sagmeister called "The Happy Show" that is a personal reflection about happiness and how to achieve it and I found to be quite interesting. At some point the artist tackles the eternal subject of passionate love as opposed to other forms of love and comes to the conclusion that (I quote by memory) "A lasting passionate love is biologically impossible". Something to keep in mind when you feel like you need more passion in your love life. If you look for passion you are biologically doomed to change partner every 6 months or so. Just saying. You can read more about the show here (if you are in the area, tomorrow June 7 is the last day).

You might ask what this has to do with Balenciaga shoes. I am getting there and it is related, but I also wanted to take a moment to mention the show because I really liked it ;-). After the show, we wandered a bit in the blue building of the Pacific Design Center which is basically a big design show room. Everything was closed and one of the guards told us that we had no rights to be there (when the other guard at the other entrance let us in. Bah). Anyway we were taking the door out when my fashion antennae spotted on the other side of the street across from the center a sign that read "Balenciaga". Could it be the Balenciaga store? It seemed very incongruous, a two-story building surrounded (and almost swallowed by) a jungle-like vegetation and nothing else around (no street to speak of). The main difference between LA and NY is that you never see anybody in the streets (unless you go to Santa Monica) so the place seemed completely abandoned with no people strolling in front of it. I had vaguely thought about looking for the Balenciaga store while in LA because I had been obsessed with a pair of shoes that were sold out in NYC, but then thought better of it (I couldn't imagine dragging my husband on a quest for a store in LA). Well, I think that if I had noted the address I would still be looking for it, it wouldn't have hit me that THAT was the store. The place is unreal for a New Yorker:

I am going to write another version of Guantanemera and ask to be buried under those cactus trees

This was a case of the mountain that comes to Mohammed so since we had parked the car just in front of it without noticing, my husband couldn't say no when I asked him if I could go in to have a look (but he stayed outside and called my daughter). It was open and I was the only client (maybe the other ones were all lost on their way there). The object of my desire was their glove espadrilles wedge in black:

My plan was to try them on for ebay/online sale sizing purposes. A high-end shoe store very close to my place used to have them at the beginning of the season and because they always send me a "private sale" flyer before Memorial Day that also gives a 10% off any purchase (sale or not) I waited and waited until they soldout at full price ($695). The LA store had them but in a very funky fuchsia color that I couldn't possibly pair with anything, so I had no temptations when I tried them on. I could at least try them and see that they fit TTS to a bit small and that the leather was buttery soft. However, even if an espadrille style, the heel was VERY high, so I began to question if I would actually be able to walk in them and wear them. The last thing that I need is a pair of $700 shoes that I don't wear. They had another style, a slingback sandal with a more walkable heel but again, the color offered wasn't something that I would wear often and the SA told me that my chances of finding them in black in either style were close to 0 because they had requested more pairs from other stores and they were soldout everywhere. "We did very well with this style this season" she said with a bit of a pitiful tone. I walked out of the store a bit relieved that I didn't have to make any decision on the spot on a $700 pair of shoes (imagine if they had the last black pair in my size). Well, actually my husband would have made the decision for me because I didn't even have my credit card with me and you know what that decision would have been!

Back to NY, I vaguely looked for them on the Internet (I had seen them on several websites, besides the Balenciaga store) and I couldn't find any size left in any wearable color in either style so I kind of resigned myself to wait until a pair would show up on ebay.
But last week I happened to be at Barney's on the first day of the designer sale, that I didn't know about until walking into Barney's. Now, I haven't stepped into Barney's in at least two years. I used to go all the time when I was working and especially during the shoe sale but the prices of designer shoes these days have skyrocketed and I stopped looking at them altogether. I mean, we are talking $500-$800 ON SALE for heels. When did that happen?
Anyway since I was there for another reason (I went to look for a present for my husband) I couldn't help visiting the shoe floor. I wasn't expecting to find the Balenciaga on sale (even if I knew that Barneys used to carry them) and in fact when I landed on the 5th floor I saw a small table of Balenciaga shoes none of which on sale. While I was there I started to look at the sale racks but, as I said before, everything was $500 and more, and that included the 40% off. I tried a very sexy pair of evening suede sandal by a designer I had never heard about (and I know a lot of designers) that retailed for $600 (again, on sale, and I don't even count the tax). The Lanvins with their "L'ete Lanvin 2013" printed on the insole would have tempted me in the old days but I kept thinking about the Balenciaga. Then when I was almost ready to leave I saw one lonely pair of the fuchsia glove espadrille (in my size) on the rack and that sight gave me some hope that there were maybe more hiding. I was sitting on a couch with three young girls barely in their 20s who kept adding $600 shoes to their "Yes" pile and at some point one of them came back showing a black glove sandal to one of her friends, who apparently wasn't interested (I want the wedges, she said to me like she could read on my face that I thought she was crazy. I wanted them too, I said like it was a thing that happened to me a long time ago and that didn't affect me anymore). With the queue of my eye I saw it was a size 6 and without much hope I asked the SA if they had a 7 or 7 1/2. She said "I don't think so" but then looked into a handheld device that all the clerks were sporting and said "Uhm, it says we have one even if I doubt it". She disappeared for a long time and I thought she had forgot about me but when she came back with a Balenciaga box saying (not the box, the SA, even if at that point I was probably hearing voices) "You are a very lucky lady" my heart almost stopped. There was still an interrogation mark though because as a matter of fact I had never tried this style on and I didn't know if they would fit or I would find them more wearable than the espadrilles (they were also slightly more expensive but the 40% off made up for it). The "glove" part of the sandal was the same buttery soft leather than the espadrille and the heel seemed very easy to walk in. They "just" fit but I chose to believe the SA that they were going to stretch out a bit. So I walked out of Barneys with my first Balenciaga (and no present for my husband). The absurd thing is that at $430 they were the cheapest of all the shoes of known and unknown designers that I tried that day.

You are probably tired of me talking now and you probably want to see the shoes. I happened to wear them yesterday night to a restaurant downtown. It was a girl's night out and I wanted to show them to my friend who can appreciate a pair of Balenciaga shoe probably more than my husband. I sort of dressed down but I would lie if I said that it was effortless: it took a lot of effort to look this cool (the skirt is by Phillip Lim, more about it in another post):







These shoes fit like a glove (pun intended) in my evening wardrobe and they look great with both pants and skirts, giving every outfit a touch of glam-rock, which seems to be my go-to going out look. These are a few pics from the other day, pre-pedi and with my LA "going out" outfit:







Another skirt outfit that I plan to wear soon (the skirt is Zara winter bought on sale, top is the Carrie cami):





Are you lusting over any designer shoe these days?

I hope you enjoyed the story!