This lady could have used our help – a crime of fashion

The date: Sunday, January 8, 2012

The place: St. Charles Ave. trolley, New Orleans, LA

The crime:

The description: I can forgive a lot of fashion crimes in the name of college football fandom. (Roll Tide and congrats boys – you made us proud!!) But wearing three inch-heeled prom shoes at 11 a.m. on your way to spend the day in the French Quarter is not one of them. And as you can barely see at the top of the photo, she was wearing them with denim capri pants.

I wish I could have gotten you a pic of this lady’s entire ensemble, but the number of people crammed onto that trolley barely allowed me to breathe, much less position my arms in such a way as to take a covert photograph. So instead, I will list for you the other things this fan had on her person:

– the aforementioned denim capri pants

– an Alabama t-shirt

– giant houndstooth hoop earrings

– a houndstooth jacket slung over her arm

– a houndstooth purse with an embroidered red ‘A’ and red feathers sticking out of the top

All of the above was tacky, yet not unexpected. But for the life of me I could not figure out why she would be wearing those shoes to walk around on what have to literally be the worst streets in America.  In fact, after I showed this pic to the husband of the couple I was there with, he turned to his wife and said “I would kill you if you ever wore shoes like that to walk around New Orleans.” Because he knew, as well as I did, that within about thirty minutes of getting off that trolley that woman would seriously be regretting her footwear decision and her husband would be the one who would pay the price.

The lesson: Was this particular pair of shoes the worst thing I saw (sartorially or otherwise) in New Orleans last weekend? No. But was it the most ridiculous? By far. (And that’s saying a LOT for a city full of drunken LSU fans.)

So remember kids, friends don’t let friends wear prom shoes to walk the French Quarter.