Panda Patterns: a Sunday Shoe Story

Since we last blogged about the importance of patterns and their integration into your wardrobe, I felt that it would be pertinent to do a keep the Shoe Sunday Story along the same theme. The shoes I’m about to tell you about I picked up towards the tail end of high school at the newly opened Winners.

Of all my flats that are not runners, my “Eleanor” Keds have always been my favourite because they contain the two most important features of a shoe: they are practical, yet still generate interest.  Not only do they have a repeating pattern that creates texture, but the pattern is not quite what it seems. At first glance, the shoes look like they have big black and white flowers on-top of the dual-green background, but when you look closer the flowers reveal themselves to be pandas! How cute is that?!?! I absolutely adore pandas, so the choice to buy these shoes over any of the other animal prints available (there are also camels, owls, and ducks) was not very difficult. The background colour was also a deciding factor, since I love green, and green shoes are some of the most difficult to find. But of course, the optical illusion of flowers turning into pandas was the most important because no one can resist pandas!

These shoes are also some of my most practical, since I can wear them with anything, and they stay comfortable after hours of wear. I’ve worn these shoes with skirts, shorts, pants, and of course jeans, and they work with any of the above. The only tricky part of wearing these shoes is that I can’t wear any other outrageous pieces of clothing with them, since they are so interesting on their own. The most common way I’ve worn them is with darkwash jeans, and a white shirt, which is about as plain an outfit as you can get, yet just adding the shoes pulls the entire ensemble together! On a physical level, these shoes are super comfy. I’ve worn them for full shifts at my job where I’m on my feet and walking for the entire time, long shopping trips, and many many adventures through the wilderness with no consequences to my feet. Considering the abuse that I’ve put these shoes through, I’m surprised that they’ve held up so well. The thin plastic coating over the canvas helps to keep the colours bright, and I only have to take a cloth or scrub brush and some soap to them every few months to keep the grime from building up on the edges. Even the panda on the inside sole has held up really well in the 5 or so years I’ve been wearing these shoes! You go panda!