Prada New Heels

[Oreo Huppe]

Earlierthis year I bought a pair of second-hand Prada shoes on eBay, and they came with their receipt. My starting point is that they were bought in Harrods on 19th December 2008, almost exactly 15 years ago now. Black, kitten-heeled, patent leather. Enough to work from, to feel curious about.

However it happened I think of the buyer seeing these shoes for the first or not-first time, pausing and examining. How they must have imagined the recipient in the shoes, imagining the expression on their face when they opened up the box. Had the recipient, future wearer, mentioned that they liked these particular pair, or just mentioned that they wanted a new pair of shoes, or were they a complete surprise? Did the buyer trail their fingers over the leather, debate a few different pairs? And who was the buyer to the wearer; partner, parent, friend, secret admirer?

Scraps of information makes gathering of other scraps of information irresistible. It\u2019s a gift receipt, which meant that they had not been bought by the wearer but had been chosen by another, or if not chosen than at least given. Presumably a Christmas present, although it could be a December birthday, or maybe a gift out of the blue. If Christmas then 19th December feels late to buy, last-minute, though not egregiously so (I haven\u2019t bought any presents yet, on 6th December 2023, so I\u2019m not one to judge). A check of what day that was reveals it was a Friday, which would have made it the last weekend before Christmas itself, so now I am thinking of the seething crowds, dissipating slightly post-lunchtime (they were bought at a quarter to three), and how it\u2019s possible that they were a panicked buy, the kind I often do at Christmas, over-compensating in a guilty rush for my lack of foresight, my lack of thought. The buyer might have been browsing after a festive late lunch or office party, wine making their cheeks pink and purchases extravagant. Of course I could be totally wrong and they might have been staking out the shoes for weeks, trying to decide, agonising over decisions of style and cost. Hands shaking as they gave over the credit card, double-checking the inclusion of the gift receipt, fearing they had made the wrong choice.

So these shoes were given and received, and then when the immediate excitement was over they were probably kept mostly in seclusion for the next fifteen years. They are worn but only lightly, which could mean that the gift never quite landed, or that they are very treasured shoes kept for best. Whoever received them might have been disappointed or overjoyed. Perhaps they were not to the wearer\u2019s exact taste, they might have thought as they tried them on, but they loved the gift-giver and so they learned to love the shoes, too \u2013 or maybe they resented them for not knowing their taste, for getting it wrong. Perhaps the wrongness of the shoes was a signifier for the wrongness of a relationship, for what it means to be unseen for who you are, or an apology for a grievous mistake, or a hint about the person the giver wanted the wearer to be, a hint that hurt the wearer secretly and made them feel dowdy or lesser or objectified or murderous. But they were kept so carefully, during those fifteen years. They were still in the box when I received them, in their original bag, and with the receipt, of course. The care means something. Maybe it means that they were always thinking of resale, of return, of the future life of the shoes when they might be sold onto another wearer, when their authenticity would be important. Maybe the wearer is or was naturally fastidious in a way I am not, shedding receipts everywhere.

But I like to think that it was not about resale or status, just that they wanted to keep all the elements pristine because it was such a thoughtful gift, because they loved and appreciated the person who gave it to them. That the buyer had seen how these shoes would fit neatly into the wearer\u2019s life, a piece of luxury that they wouldn\u2019t get for themselves, though it\u2019s possible the buyer had seen how their eyes darted when they had gone together through Harrod\u2019s shoe department, just browsing for fun, a few weeks before. I like to think that the wearer wanted to look at the receipt whenever they took the shoes from their box and then from their bag, to think of the buyer/gift-giver in a bedecked Harrods at just after lunchtime on the last December before Friday, a bit drunk, maybe, a crumpled paper hat in their pocket, picking up the different shoes in their hands as they decided which one the future wearer would be most pleased by. Maybe it was a secret gift, the kind where every element is held close, where a receipt is also treasured \u2013 scanned for clues which never give up anything, but returned to as a kind of proof.

The first time I wore them, it was my first book event for Cursed Bread. I lost one of the tips on the heels and need to take them already to the cobbler at the end of my road, but I haven\u2019t yet, so they are back in the bag and back in the box, with the receipt nestling against it. I bought them because in my favourite book there is a scene where the protagonist\u2019s future wife is wearing Prada shoes, and I wanted to be able to tap around in my own, to play at seduction, to play at feeling polished, and it isn\u2019t lost to me that just about everything precious I own has once belonged to someone else, but I don\u2019t mind this too much. I like to be part of the second act of an object. To treasure it newly once the sheen has worn off for the first person, its history imprinted upon it in scuff marks, places where the fabric has thinned. There is something uncanny and tempting about brushing against the life of a stranger, placing their life in your own in the slightest of ways. A haunting, an echo, a trying-on.

I\u2019ll never know who owned these shoes, or who gave them to the wearer. They won\u2019t know me. I bought them cheaply, \u00A325, as if they were keen to get rid of them. I don\u2019t know why they decided to sell after all this time. It could have been a clear-out, a move, a relationship breakdown, a death. It could have been out of boredom or disillusionment with the shoes, disillusionment with the giver. I think of the wearer uncovering the box at the back of the wardrobe and remembering oh these, remembering the Christmas they were given with fondness or disgust or neutrality, already putting them aside, wistfully or otherwise, starting to think about what it would mean to let them go, what space it could make, what this space could be used for.

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