There’s a timelessness to a good, painful shoe that you don’t find in many other items. I remember my Mom and all the Aunts wearing these shoes all the time. Everywhere.

“Briefly Open to Every Admiring Glance” may be the most enigmatically sexual tagline used by a catalog retailer. Whose glance? What is open? Why is the opening brief? Are we talking about toe cleavage, and admitting that people of both sexes sneak surreptitious looks at women’s shoes? Of course we are.