My Shoe Collection #38

Louis Vuitton Blue Leather Trainers (Fall Winter 2000)

I was doing some spring cleaning for my room and as usual, there were loads of rubbish and excessive things that I miraculously managed to accumulate over the past years. So spring cleaning was necessary to discard the old and make room for the new!

But sometimes, long lost gems can be uncovered while sorting out the clutter. So look what I found this time hidden in some obscure corner of some 'shoe lost world'...a pair of Louis Vuitton Blue Leather Trainers. If my memory serve me well, I think it did...these were bought on my first trip to Europe...and at the 'LV mothership' in Paris, braving bitter cold and having first taste of French SA's snobbery. It was definitely memorable and yet anguish. I remembered this was also the first time I discovered that I have to queue up in cold winter temperatures just to get into a luxury store. I was rudely shocked! It was again the first time that I discovered that I had to be assigned a SA in order to try to buy something from LV Paris. And these SAs only serves you for bags, so if you decide to go check out ready to wear, you have to queue again just to be able to buy anything. It was pure frustration and torture. So much time wasted, some much anger bottled. In the end, me and my friend being 'LV whores' then, swallowed our pride and decided to go with the flow. At the end of the day, we end up with no bags and instead each of us bought the exact pair of sneakers, but in different size and colour, just to justify our time spent there and of course to booast to friends about our shopping in LV Paris. My friend (the same one who got me my Treillis) got this pair of leather trainers in Brown in size 7.5...while I got mine in deep blue in size 7.

I still recalled both of us (in our group of 4), each carrying a gigantic backpack, while we hand carried huge LV bags of shoeboxes all across Switzerland and Germany. Simply hilarious. Can you imagine backpacking and yet lugging LV shopping bags? So typical Asian. I still remember an incident while aboard a bus in Lucerne, Switzerland. We had to stand as there were no seats on the bus. While the bus is moving, my LV carrier bag somehow toppled over and rolled quite a distance down the bus, past the hordes of seated passengers. Very embarrassing, everyone was staring.:-P

After much pain, sweat and arm muscles bringing the shoes back to Singapore, my friend was smart, he immediately wears them and get to enjoy the rewards for his effort. As for me...I patiently awaits the right occasion to show off this shoe. But it seemed there never was a suitable time to wear these. So one month becomes a year, a year becomes 2...and 2 years becomes 5, and (oh my god), now 5 years become 8! The shoe was bought in Dec 2000 and it is already Jan 2009. A long lapse of 8 years....and counting.

All these years, the poor shoe 'sobs' in his shoebox, wondering when will his owner let him see the daylight once again. The shoebox gets tattered, the shoe bag gets mouldy and dust gets accumulated. It was a wait in vain. Finally today, lady luck takes pity on the poor shoe and it finally got freed from it's shoe box prison and be finally reunited with its 'heartless' owner...Namely me:-P

So what do you guys think? Is the design still relevant for today? Is the shoe dated now? I am not sure if I should wear these. My friend ask me to sell him this pair of shoe for a 'token sum' as he still likes it and his brown pair is already in shoe heaven.

Nostalgia...this shoe brings back lots of memories:-) Of younger days and fun travelling times. I think I paid approx. SGD $350, after Euro dollar conversion. And if I remember correctly, LV Ngee Ann City was selling these for about SGD $550. Those were the days of more affordable LVs:-P I think I just 'expose' how old I am:-(...ooops.

On a side note, I am actually very impressed with the quality of LV shoes. The rubber sole is as good as new...no signs of disintegration, unlike other brands like Miu Miu and Boss. Anyone knows the name of this shoe? I know this was one of the first few collections by Marc Jacobs which puts Louis Vuitton back into the fashion limelight.