The crimes against humanity file: foot fashion

A young lady on a message board I frequent started a thread titled "Is this tacky," and since I am obviously the Internet Judge of Good Taste, I dove right in.

(Official disclaimer: I didn't actually post any of the following on her thread since that would be, you know, mean.)

So it turns out that Miss Thang is just in love with these shoes and would like others' opinion on whether they are appropriate footwear for her wedding dress. I'm going to leave the wedding dress part aside, since that's her prerogative, and will address the shoes on a completely stand-alone basis.

Ok.

Let's begin with the description of the shoes from the seller's web site. Bolding is mine:

• Slip into this elagent vinyl thong sandal.
• Lovely accented with a heart rhinestone design.
• Clear lucite strap upper for extra style.
• Polyurethane sole.

If you managed to make it through the egregious spelling and grammatical errors, you may agree with me that the words "vinyl," "rhinestone," "lucite," and "polyurethane" do not inspire confidence when discussing elegance and style. AND HERE'S THE BEST PART. Please enjoy the following excerpts from responses to the thread in question:

• "they're just lovely and totally classy"
• "it will look quite lovely"
• "I love the shoes"

Apparently I have lost my mind because I fail to see the allure of shoes made out of the same material used to make carpet underlay and wound dressings. I am just SO OUT OF IT because I think shoes should be leather and not have heart-shaped designs on them.

But that's not even the worst of it. In her post, the vinyl-shoe-lover wants to know if she can WEAR PANTYHOSE with these lucite beasts. Oh God. I teeter on the brink of a pulmonary embolism every time I see a woman wearing the dreaded sandal/pantyhose combo, particularly the black pantyhose/black sandal pairing.

Thankfully, people seem to have talked the poster out of the pantyhose. HOWEVER, someone helpfully suggested THIS atrocity -- the TOELESS PANTYHOSE (shown here in the knee-high version to enable readers to fully grasp the horror).

Look, America. I know you love your pantyhose. I know you do. But this is really just too much. I am going to take a stand here and say that I think the TOELESS version is even worse than the original sandal/pantyhose combo. You know why? Because it shows me that you've actually THOUGHT about it. You went to the store and carefully selected hosiery that will render the front half of your foot a completely different color than the rest of your leg. CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT??? And then? And then? Then you pair up this ATROCITY with strappy sandals so we can ALL SEE the lovely seam and line of demarkation. YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.

SHAVE YOUR LEGS, BE COLD, AND SUCK IT UP LIKE THE REST OF US WITH GOOD TASTE DO.