The Great Shoe Cull

I will hold my hands up and admit that recently, I have become rather, shall we say, occasional in my posting so I thought that this evening I would remedy that and tell you at long last about the Great Shoe Cull.

When I was at Uni, I lived in Converse. They were all I wore, aside from my biker boots in winter. Back in those days, I was relatively uninterested in shoes. Wary of heel related injuries to my [at the time much worse] knee, I stuck to flat shoes and it wasn't until the dawning of ballet pumps that my shoe collection really begin to grow.

A few weeks ago, in a fit of madness one sunny Saturday morning, I decided it was time to take action against the ever growing army of shoes that were littering the room. So bad was the problem that my boyfriend had taken to threatening to move out and I figured it was time to do something about it.

I started by crawling into the dark recesses of my wardrobe, long a dumping ground for shoes and throwing out everything I found on the floor. Soon after, a mountain obstructed the wardrobe entirely:



Please bear in mind, that this is just the beginning. Next, it was the mounds under the bed. Then under the window (boots only) and finally all of the pairs to be found around the room. Before beginning the cull, I decided it would probably be a good idea to sort the mounds into piles of types in order to access the problem accurately and get rid of shoes that I didn't really need. That much. It feels wrong writing that sentence but hey ho.

So, without further ado, each category in photos. Admittedly, there were certain pairs of mainly boots that I culled or threw in the bin immediately but this is still a fairly accurate represenation. I'd also like to apologise for the fact that blogger has chosen to rotate nearly all of my landscape photos into portrait so you may wish to turn your head to view. Anyway, we'll begin with boots:

BEFORE



AFTER



Next, trainers:

BEFORE



AFTER



Next, even my burgeoning heel collection fell victim:

BEFORE



AFTER



And finally, the ballet pumps. As you can see, I pretty much buy these compulsively:

BEFORE



AFTER



After each edit, the shoes were all packed by category and colour into plastic crates (as seen below) and listed.



Perhaps I was a little obsessive compulsive but I hope that this will mean that they stay in their crates rather than ending up in groups around the room. Since the cull took place, I've also extended it to my hanging wardrobe and accessory pile so hopefully one day I'll actually regain control of my wardrobe. And you may ask what will happen to all of the shoes that have been relegated. Well, they'll be split into three piles - ebay, charity shop and homeless shelter - once the wardrobe cull has been completed. All that's left is the battle of the shelf wardrobe, which should take place over the coming Easter weekend. Wish me luck!