"...fill thy brain with...fashion and covetousness...wine and French coffee..."

"If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

For...well, quite a while now...there's been an vague image floating around in the back of my mind. A nagging, undefined urge for a pair of "French girl boots". This isn't the technical description you understand...but the style kept turning up on the feet of French femmes in streetstyle blogs...in collections from Isabel Marant...on the websites for French magazines...and, in my mind, they became "F.g.b".

They were ankle boots...they were chunky yet undeniably feminine...they appeared in leather and suede...and, invariably, they had a heel. Now, as you know, I don't "do" heels. Mainly, it's true, because I lack a sense of balance...I am the quintessential klutz. And so my "F.g.b" urge remained a dormant daydream.

Then, as I sat in Russell & Bromley...trying on what turned out to be two pairs of very uncomfortable flats...I spotted a pair of "F.g.b". They were, quite literally, the stuff that dreams are made of...if you dream in sandy hued nubuck that is. I had to try them on, if only so I could stand (quivering like an aspen) for a brief moment in front of the mirror. But then something odd happened...no quiver...not a shake. I could stand, I could walk, heck I might even have managed a run if the need had arisen.

Needless to say, it takes a stronger woman than I to deny destiny...