Boots Blues and Other Shoes: Patent Leather to Leather-like Plastic

 Blooming Boot Necklace

Sweater: Wild Fable, Target

Skirt: Hollister, Marshalls

Boots: 2 Lips Too, Zulily

Bag: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

Barrette: The Tote Trove

From top, clockwise: Apt. 9, Kohl's; Union Bay, Kohl's; Simply Vera, Kohl's; Apt. 9, Kohl's

From top, clockwise: 2 Lips Too, JCPenney; 2 Lips Too, Zulily; Penny Loves Kenny, Amazon; Penney Loves Kenny, Amazon

If you've been reading this blog long enough, then you know that I don't like winter.  That said . . . I love boots.  I love them with skirts, denim and otherwise, and I love them with dresses and jeans.  And not just because they're comfy and hide my gnarly, unpainted toenails.  There's just something irreverent (ironic?) and fun about making a fashion statement with something that was originally intended to block out the snow and muck out horse stalls.  Lately, I'm into ones that are western.  And because I'm a contemplative, avid collector kind of girl, I decided to photograph two groups of my favorite boots -- one featuring four pairs of citified kicks and another showing four pairs for camping out -- or should I say glamping out? -- at the ranch.

Taking these pics got me thinking about Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, which I read awhile ago.  It's Food Network chef Ree Drummond's autobiography, and in it she describes her transformation from country club princess to home on the range homemaker and the style evolution that came with it.  Before she met her husband, she worked in an office and dressed up every day.  She used to love lining up and polishing her collection of black high-heeled pumps.  (Of course, as a vegetarian, she also used to love pasta primavera, but that's a whole other facet of her transformation tale.)  Then she hooked up with her hubby, who she refers to as the Marlboro Man, and moved out to his isolated cattle ranch, where she morphed into the peasant blouse-wearing, steak-scarfing prairie princess (because I still have to get princess in there) that foodies and philistines alike know and love today.

I could relate because back in the day my own style had a harder edge.  (Also because I live next to an empty lot that kind of looks like a ranch.)  I didn't like wearing anything that looked provincial, and that included all things western.  But sometime between then and now I became more eclectic, and country-fried flair emerged as one of the key elements of my look.  Probably because it's homey and warm and, in the right hands, more crazy colorful than the raddest rave getup.  Also, because felt, which I use a lot in my accessories, has that same soft-yet-crunchy aesthetic.  Anyway, my favorite western accessory is (obvi) boots.  Because they show where you're going, and they show where you've been.  And because when you're on a ranch, literal, figurative, or otherwise, it's important to wear something that shows the cows who's heading the herd.  Even if that something is a pair of boots made of plastic instead of rawhide.

They won't know the difference.  They're cows.

P. S.  I don't know what the "otherwise" is.