Week Twenty-five: Boat Shoes

So Kumar's really looking forward to receiving his order of Cole Haan boat shoes for this S/S. I'm glad he's settled for me once and for all as to what they're really called - "boat shoes" - because I've always thought they were called "topsiders" - that is, short (I'm just finding out like now!) for Sperry Topsiders, the original makers of this type of shoe. This is a classic example of a Filipino quirk that have them indiscriminately lumping a class of things together, referring to them by a proper noun/brandname, so that all laundry detergents are Tide, all toothpastes are Colgate, all colas are Coke, all refrigerators are Frigidaire, heck, even all male foreigners are called Kanos, that is, short of course for "Amerikano" so that, Maria's step-dad who's as German as German can be and speaks zilch English, by default is assigned an American identity by everyone in town, by virtue of his Caucasian features, lol.

Going back to boat shoes (which, when, you come to think of it, is quite a generic name!), they were born out of boaters' need for a non-slip shoe that wouldn't scuff up the decks of their vessels, hence, their trademark white sole with their not as readily obvious characteristic of special grooving simulating the soles of dog feet, in a rather ingenious feat of biomimetics (forgive the pun!) achieved by employing a special technique of splitting or "siping" of rubber soles invented and patented by a John Sipe.

Kumar's boat shoes are going to complete the nautical look he's going for, which, as I had explained in my last post, is really quite the rage these days for both the "fairer and sterner sexes" and how one need not necessarily live by a "navigable body of water" and can reside as "inland as Saskatoon" to rock this trend. The latter statement is open to open rebuttal, I being geographically-challenged and simply too lazy to verify my facts!

I'll leave the boat-shoe-wearing to Kumee once he receives them, though, they're a tad too masculine for my taste, even the ladies models. But in keeping with the shoe theme, I'll leave you with an amazing picture* courtesy of Deb, personal friend and owner of PIX me photography who knows and really "gets" what is meant by "shoe fetish"....



*I wouldn't recommend wearing these on a game fishing trip :P