Fashion & Style

Charles Jourdan and the Epitome of Swell.

The Joy of Being Well Shod.

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

I must have been nine when they first caught my eye. It was in the days when parents weren’t afraid to let their children roam the streets of New York. I was tall for my age, the same height that I am now (which 50 years later isn’t considered tall in the slightest) but for a nine year old it was pretty tall.

I knew how to move like a New Yorker. Purposeful, determined, no dilly dallying. I never walked much further than 5th Avenue and I knew how to take the crosstown bus home, which delivered me right to my door. These journeys often ended inside Saks. Their shoe department was vast and peopled by gracious clerks who spoke in murmured voices. Bergdorf’s shoe department was pretty nice, too actually. But it was at Saks where I spied my first pair of Charles Jourdan. There was also an eponymous store with a sleek black and red interior. Far too sophisticated and daunting to enter at the time. But at Saks, I could pick them up, hold them, and touch the soft, elegant interior. Beautiful.

There were sandals and pumps, or court shoes as the British like to say. There were mules and brogues, boots made of satin or sometimes a mysterious textured hide. As I grew up, I’d spy a pair here, or study them in a department store there. If…