FreakShow

South Coast Plaza

May 13

Most of the bitsy stilettos in Jimmy Choo's fall and winter lines are very, very hideous, judging by this week's featured trunk show. The lox-colored go-go boots? Those are $745 worth of ugly. The witchy loafers in liver-brown? Liverous! The black Yeti boot? Furry and almost as awful as the Choos Miranda squirted her placenta on when Carrie met her in the delivery room, fresh from her carriage ride with Chris Noth. Remember those? They were pink and fringey. The black Yeti boot is so fuck-you, but, ladies? You're less Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. and more just Chaka in Land of the Lost. Caveman chic: it's the new heroin!

Then there's the Ugg stiletto knee-high boot, which isn't really going to be appropriate anywhere unless you're rich and blowing Korn. The dark-teal patent leather? I could be persuaded, but the only truly beautiful shoe is the Blossom, from whose straps hang obsidian danglies and small crosses. For $1,490, should a shoe that's not gross really be the exception to the rule? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

At the front of the feminine little shop is the current season's crop: the pink flip-flop swathed in Swarovski ("Swarovski are the only crystal we carry")? They looked like a bat mitzvah. The wedgies on a mother-of-pearl heel? Flirty and femme, but I think Jesus might have something to say about women busy walking on mother of pearl. Were they all out of shoes made from baby minks?

When I began writing down prices in my handy reporter's notebook, the store's foreign-accented glamazons got nervous. Who exactly had invited me? Why exactly was I there? But those cunning retail ladies—instead of frogmarching me out the door, they brought out their secret weapons: the cute, friendly saleslad and a bottle of champagne. He was warm, he was chatty, and Mrs. Robinson, he was trying to seduce me. Did I want to try those on? The mother of pearl? He was to be my moral ruin, and I called shotgun for that hayride ride to hell.

Until I got my mules off and saw the black smears of dirt crusted up and down my toes and was so embarrassed I had to run out of the store. Saved!