I’ve recently become more interested in wearing trainers as casual footwear. Some girls are into trainers. Or fashion. I am not one of those girls. I’m interested in so far as I have an idea what sort of thing I like the look of and thats about it. Some time ago I bought a pair of lovely Skechers trainers with purple butterflies and black soles.
They are about 7 years old and I’ve been told I should replace shoes more frequently than that. I want to add that before recently, these shoes were worn only occasionally. I spent 2 of those 7 years, terribly overweight and unable to walk any decent distance without pain. I wore special insoles in a set of Clarks shoes and shunned standing for any length of time.
Before then, I thought trainers made my legs look fat and I slipped my feet into flat wide ballet pumps despite the miles I would trek around the city, which probably did me no favours whatsoever and was probably part of the reason for the pain when I put on weight.
Since moving to Scotland and losing weight and walking everywhere, these trainers have become more and more suitable to my activities, they are smart and black and suited leggings and tights if I had to go far enough away that I didn’t want to wear ballet pumps. Then a few months ago I stopped swamping my body in floaty dressses and started wearing joggies and trackies and jeans. Trainers became the obvious choice every time.
Now they are broken and I want to replace them so off I go to the Skechers website. May as well start with the brand that I liked before.
And this takes me to this moment. About to tear my hair out in frustration.
Do you know how many pairs of trainers, Skechers currently advertise? Somewhere around 700. I’m not actually sure on the exact number as there are three categories that seem to involve just trainers that add up to 2000 pairs (and the site only has 1700 pairs of shoes under ‘women’), and several pairs of trainers seem to appear under multiple categories. But from what I can tell, it’s around 700. That’s a lot of trainers!
How do you know which ones are which? Many of them are the same colour and seem to be similar styles. The pictures all look similar and the specs probably mean something to someone, but to the average shoe shopper it seems like a minefield.
I eventually invested in a bright orange pair with a cushioned sole that advertises itself as a running shoe. I have no idea if it’s the right pair. I gave up after scrolling endlessly through twenty pages on my phone screen.
I have recently been watching ‘Are you being served’ and reminiscing over Liverpool sagas from the 70’s. What I wouldn’t give to walk into a shop and have the experts help me decide the right sort of shoe out of passion for their job not simply to try to get me to spend money unnecessarily.
Does it need to be this difficult to buy a pair of trainers?
FaerieFalls 