ENTER, André Leon Talley — the man near Anna Wintour in the top Vogue echelon, America's Next Top Model catchphrase-smith, giant icon of fashion.

(NEW YORK POST WRITER holds two pairs of the designer shoes: lime-green sandals and black evening shoes.)

ANDRÉ: Darling, darling... no, no, no... get those! You can never have too many black pumps. Never! And those are di-vine!

The Post's sizable profile of Talley begins thusly, and there is no exeunt in sight. Describing him as a newly refashioned "man of the people," the article charts the master of all things haute's recent forays into more mainstream pursuits, such as the judging on Tyra Bank's America's Next Top Model and MC'ing events such as the shoe sale.

The change in direction became possible for Talley after he switched his position at Vogue from editor-at-large to contributing editor, freeing up time for new projects. 

Missed King André holding court at the Manolo Blahnik sale? He calls the event "one of [his] favorite things to do," so perhaps you'll get another chance to field shopping advice from the man himself -- in six months. 

nfreeman at observer.com |@nfreeman1234

In the super-earnest, cash-strapped America of today, you can no longer define yourself by a flashy purse or the number of Louboutin porno pumps in your closet. Ding-dong, the Sex and the City female archetype is melting! That post-feminist woman, the gal who thought drinking Cosmos and buying Blahniks made her an empowered and contributing member of society, is now lying in the fetal position in her closet, clutching fistfuls of credit card bills and cringing with embarrassment at her previous excesses.

In order to stay relevant in this brave new world, you must reinvent yourself and develop new interests that take you beyond knowing how to spell and pronounce the words “Balenciaga” and “Lanvin.” It’s time for change! Obama aside, you owe it to the sisters of yore to become a more substantive chick. The suffragettes and hairy-legged gals of the ’70s feminist movement did not throw themselves on the ramparts so that you could live your life like one those blond dingbat shopaholics on The Hills.

Regarding shopping: Chances are you no longer have the shekels to splurge the way you once did. Even if you have the cash, your consumer confidence has taken a nose dive, and you are now, horror of horrors, “shopping in your closet.”

Here’s my advice: Continue shopping outside your closet—maintaining a fierce and meaningful allegiance to, for example, Barneys and Jonathan Adler—but stop yapping about it. Stop braying on about your purchases as if you were doing something meaningful like removing brain tumors or solving the global economy. SHOP BUT DON’T TELL.

And stop allocating all your free time to shopping. You can no longer afford to, and, in Obama-world, you run the risk of being branded an idiot—or, worse still, a Republican holdout.

From now on, your shopping trips will be more like surgical strikes. Snag yourself a personal shopper who can streamline the process. (Do you seriously think Michelle Obama is rummaging through the racks of Isabel Toledo and Narciso Rodriguez herself?) Call Pat Drake at Barneys—she used to be a Rockette!—or email her at pdrake@barneys.com, and she will get you hooked up.

“But how can I possibly fill the hours formerly occupied with shopping?” I hear you shriek with petulant shrillness bordering on abject terror.

The answer is simple: Netflix.

In order to get a clear sense of how New Yorkers spent their leisure time before the arrival of the Shopping Godzilla, you must take a trip down movie memory lane, viewing the cinematic masterpieces from that bygone era.

In Saturday Night Fever—lensed back when the meatpacking district was only known to drug-addled cross-dressers and fisting-club habitués—the cast of funsters is either disco-dancing, working in a paint store, shagging or unconscious: i.e., they are living their lives. We never see Tony actually buying his NikNik shirts. They just are.

In Taxi Driver there is no Pretty Woman–esque shopping montage for De Niro and Jodie Foster. She’s too busy hooking. He’s too busy moping and grinding his teeth.

In Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow is too busy avoiding Beelzebub to waste time at Pea in the Pod. If this movie were to have been remade during the recent shopaholic era, scenes of the haunted protagonista loading up on Liz Lange for Target would doubtless have been added.

In Manhattan or Annie Hall, the brainy Upper West Siders divide their time between reading The New York Times and, yawn, visiting museums.

Call me a philistine, but let’s face it—museums can be very boring. If you are going to fill your spare time by taking this highbrow route, then I would suggest you at least opt for the more niche institutions. Example: During a recent Florida holiday, my Jonny and I bagged our post-Thanksgiving shlep to the Bal Harbor Shops and went instead to the Burt Reynolds Museum—Florida’s Largest Celebrity Museum!—in Jupiter. Though not really on a par with the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, the Reynolds museum, with its endless walls of autographed glossies—look, there’s Dinah Shore! Look, there’s the canoe from Deliverance!—made for an enrichingly cheesy afternoon. And … drumroll … there is a museum store!

Caution: Museums with tantalizing gift shops can defeat the purpose and plonk you right back where you started, in full shopaholic mode. You must resist. You must gird your loins with your newfound gravitas and fight the temptation to buy those Smokey and the Bandit shot glasses.

Deep is the new superficial!

sdoonan@observer.com

Sarah Michelle Gellar met her bestie, shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, on a rainy Manhattan day at Bergdorf.

In the February issue of Radar, the 30-year-old actress—whose next film, Possession, will be released at the end of February—sets the scene: “One day, a couple friends and I went into Bergdorf just to get out of the rain,” she said, adding: “A man who works there, who I know, he said, ‘Mr. Blahnik is here signing autographs and doing sketches. You have to come meet him. And there was this big line of women, and I thought, This is going to be so embarrassing, he’s going to have absolutely no idea who I am! So I’m waiting for this blank look from him, and he’s like [imitating his Spanish accent], ‘It’s Sarah Michelle! I love the Buffy!’ He was so lovely. He sketched a shoe and signed it, and it actually hangs in my closet.”

Unlike so many other child stars in Hollywood, Ms. Gellar has seemingly managed to remain relatively grounded and healthy. Addressing the issue, she told the magazine: “As a kid, performing was my passion, but it wasn’t at the forefront of my life. I wasn’t a child star; I was a working child actor. So I got more from seeing other actors who had missed their childhoods.”

Not entirely perfect, she also admitted to having rather superficial fantasies. “My dreams are just so on the surface that, literally, there’s nothing to actually read into,” she told the magazine.

Sarah Michelle Gellar Has Superficial Dreams [Just Jared]

Mr. Boman had delivered a talk about the still life portraits he's made of Mr. Blahnik's architectural footwear. In them, they are dressed up in everything from African ceremonial jewelry to a scale-less Spanish mackerel. The photographs have now been collected in a weighty volume destined, it's safe to say, for the coffee tables of many fans of the HBO series which featured the famously Blahniks-addicted character Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

"Do you make any references to the show?" the woman inquired eagerly.

"Manolo thinks—which is very unfair—he thinks it's vulgarized his name," said Mr. Boman, who has a boyish, fine-featured face.

A listener in the audience gagged loudly.

"He says,"—here Mr. Boman traded his casual chatty tone for a comically grandiloquent one—"‘I'm sure that that Miss Parker is a perfectly nice woman,' and, he says, ‘I have met her, as a matter of fact'—I think she presented him with some award, you know, and she is a very nice woman, but he just thought that..."—Mr. Boman went into silent reflection for a moment—"It's an aspect of his work that he doesn't feel is his work?"

There were chuckles from the audience, which numbered 12. In this intimate setting, Mr. Boman spoke freely, as one might of a difficult, yet still utterly adored relative. "But it is, of course, what made him very successful and he should be very grateful. But he will not listen to any of that, and that's the way he is. He's the most stubborn...."

Mr. Boman met Mr. Blahnik in the early 1970's, shortly after they both arrived in London. Mr. Boman is a native Swede and Mr. Blahnik is of Czech and Spanish parentage. After years of shaping their respective careers—Mr. Blahnik, Mr. Boman noted, held no formal training in shoe design before taking up the profession, and adding Paloma Picasso to their happy circle, Mr. Boman decamped for New York. He's lived here, in Chelsea, for decades now.

"We've been friends for this long, I think, because there is an ocean between us," Mr. Boman said.

A sentimental sigh rose from the audience.

"He's a wonderful, loyal friend, a wonderful person, but he's very, very...it's a lot of stuff, and you can only deal with it in small doses. He has a very definite idea about how he thinks he wants to be seen—and not seen."

Mr. Boman had earlier described how Mr. Blahnik flatly vetoed one of his shots because it featured lines of powdered sugar that suggested lines of cocaine. "And so he puts on this rather showy performance persona, which is sometimes very exhausting. He used to walk down the street with me in London and he would spit out insults at people as he saw them because he would think that was, like, funny. He liked to outrage people."

That evening, just blocks away, Sarah Jessica Parker was treading the red carpet for the New York premiere of her new film, "Failure to Launch." And on her feet—what do you suppose she wore?

—Nicholas Boston

Cheer up! That hangover will eventually evaporate, and-best news of all-those bunions can be accommodated. No, I'm not talking about debilitating foot surgery! Just shuffle/stagger on over to the legendary Shoe Service Plus at 15 West 55th Street (212-262-4823) and demand to see proprietor Carlos Mesquita's miraculous new bunion-stretching machine. You never know whom you'll run into.

In a town where shoes are a religion, Carlos' shop is something of a midnight mission for worn-out soles. Blahnik lovers, Broadway hoofers, strippers, actresses and Vogue -ettes of all ages (Anna Wintour's sling-backs and mules are refurbished by Carlos himself) and genders (ditto André Leon Talley) line up every day clutching damaged and worn designer shoes, giving this establishment the air of a trampy, trendy soup kitchen. Though many customers seem to have come to flirt with the ultra-distinguished Carlos, 53, or his attractive son David, 23, all of the women I spoke to extolled the amazing service and value. At $25 a pop, Carlos' legendary refurbishments are a total bargain. "He can bring shoes back from the dead," said patiently waiting P.R. chief executive Lisa Linden, who will not even think of wearing new shoes until Carlos has Scotchgarded them and given them the once-over.

A handsome Portuguese heterosexual, Mr. Mesquita has an almost kinky rapport with his customers. "I can tell everything about a woman by her shoes," he said when I spoke to him recently as the lunchtime midtown rush was subsiding. "The way she takes care of them, or not; where they are worn; how they smell…." Eeeuw! "I have a closet like a woman," the French-raised Carlos continued provocatively, adding by way of clarification: "I wear the best shoes-John Lobb and Gucci-so I understand the feelings and needs of my female customers."

As we spoke, Carlos cradled-as if it were a bird with a broken wing-an injured Jimmy Choo cat-poo-colored, knee-length boot with a broken heel (again, a mere $25 to repair), prompting me to ask: Who makes the crappiest shoes? Which schlocky brands are most frequently placed in his healing hands? "Some shoes are prettier than others, some are stronger," replied Carlos diplomatically as he demonstrated his bunion-stretching machine, which is about the size of a small George Foreman grill. "Any shoe can give you bunions," he added, marking the area on the shoe which corresponds to the peak of a big-toe adjacent, Mt. Saint Helens–sized bunion. "And once women are becoming 30, the bones in the feet get flatter and the foot is getting wider. Then comes the bunions." Along with his regular refurbishments, Carlos performs about 40 bunion-accommodation procedures per day. At $10 a pair-$5 per bunion-Carlos' bunion-stretching is more economical than your Ibuprofin habit ($12.99 for 500 caps at Duane Reade).

N.B.: If your pedi-problem is truly dire, contact groovy Central Park West podiatrist Dr. Lewis Galle at 212-262-4588; he tends to the Rockettes' overstressed hooves.

Re shoes: Postmodern juxtapositions are big news this summer. Last winter, we had the high-heeled Timberland boot (originally created by Manolo Blahnik and subsequently knocked off ad nauseam). This season, Mr. Blahnik brings us an exquisitely rendered high-heeled basketball sneaker/mule ($455) that comes in, of all things, pink. Meanwhile, downtown at Sigerson Morrison, the high-heeled rubber flip-flop is provoking Baghdad-like riots. By early May, this fabulously engineered, perverse little item ($85, in fluorescent orange, fuchsia, red, lime green, chalky white, chocolate or black) had already become a sold-out footwear icon. The Mott Street store just received a fresh shipment. The next one doesn't arrive until mid-June, so get in line now (the store opens at 11 a.m. from Monday to Saturday; noon on Sundays).

And no, the high-heeled flip-flop is not just for young Calypso and Scoop-type chicks. You former gin-swilling funsters should also be eagerly partaking. All that freedom and unobstructed vision will be like a Fresh Air Fund weekend for those crusty bunions. Don't forget to sun-block your tootsies!

If attention is your goal, how about substituting something contentious for your footwear kvellings? Whenever you feel a shoe moment coming on, reach for the New York Post , which-admit it-is always close at hand, and parrot some of the bracing invective from the editorial page. My personal fave is agitated arch-conservative Michelle Malkin, whom I picture sporting a sensible black patent-leather mid-level career heel. Whether denouncing the body-piercings of pop singer Christina Aguilera as "ridiculous" or railing against the laissez-faire of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, M.M.'s abrasive common sense is bound to stun your annoyingly über -liberal claque into silence and focus their attention on you .

Re shoes: Why not, instead of buying gobs of shoes, just buy one pair of shoes at a time and wear them relentlessly-as some punk chicks did back in the 1970's-until the heels erode? Or why not do as Jeanne Moreau's character does in the 1966 Tony Richardson–directed movie Mademoiselle : Buy one pair of kinkily evil black-patent stilettos and wear them only when you're actually feeling kinky and evil. (During your non-stiletto time, try this season's trendy Y3 Yohji Yamamoto–meets–Adidas sneaker-$250, exclusively at Barneys Co-op in early February.) In this pretentious but riveting movie, a young and austerely chic Mlle. Moreau plays a repressed schoolteacher who spends her free time stroking and polishing her kinky patent high-heels. Her sublimated sexual urges erupt every now and then, occasioning her to don the shoes and kill people and farm animals.

The screenplay for Mademoiselle was written by none other than Jean Genet while recovering from the suicide of his Arab circus-acrobat boyfriend, who had plummeted to his death after M. Genet goaded him to perform excessively risky feats. Director Richardson's gripping out-of-print autobio, The Long-Distance Runner , details how he found the playwright and mayhem magnet living, improbably, in a Norwich, England, hotel, drowning his guilt and sorrow in an infatuation with a young, married English racing car driver. Mr. Richardson further speculates that Genet agreed to write the script in order to buy his chap a new Porsche or Mercedes.

If you aren't into such mayhem or you simply can't bear the thought of wearing worn-down shoes (i.e., you're too old to pull off the dégagé of such a radical gesture), then pick a snappy black shoe and buy multiples thereof. There are plenty of governess-goes-to-hell stilettos to choose from. This season's shoes have, thank God, become more shoe-like and less strappily conceptual and confusing. From Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, I heartily recommend the black patent kinky-yet-sweet peep-toe with the bow ($505, closed-toe or sling-back). Christian Louboutin's Piratata in black kid ($425) is a dominatrix-ballerina hybrid guaranteed to stimulate mayhem. From Manolo Blahnik, yes, it's the Caroline, the No. 1–selling staple of the Blahnik oeuvre for years, a wicked sling-back with a pointy closed toe that is named after 80's socialite Carolyn Roehm ($425 and up at the Blahnik store at 31 West 54th Street, Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys).

Cash-poor girls should check out Spiegel.com, wherein lurks a surprisingly kinky black suede T-strap for $89.

Re blathering on about shoes: Here's an updated stiletto anecdote that will make you refrain from ever referring to your footwear again for as long as you live. Remember that story about the mangled Lizzie Grubman victim who begged the fireman not to cut her Jimmy Choos? And the rumor that some aggressive P.R. mayhem-maven nabbed the moment for Mr. Choo? Well, rumors are raging through the shoe community that what she specifically ordered was: "Don't cut my Sergio Rossis." Quel scandale!

Try to buy a simple black pump these days and bam, a bow hits you in the face. "It's so Audrey Hepburn," is how they try to sell it. Hey, not all of us want to look like a deer with a ribbon around its neck. We just want some black pumps to get us around the grimy streets with some dignity–is that so much to ask?

Apparently. Walk through Scoop, the upscale boutique of the moment, and find bows as far as the weary eye can see. There's a "peasant" top costing a couple hundred dollars with little bows on the elastic sleeves–stomach-curdling. Pawing further down the rack … a stringy bow on a seafoam cotton sweater with a label that reads "Martin Kidman"–no relation to Nicole, one hopes, because no stylish movie star should be sporting that twittery little bow business on her collarbone.

Meanwhile, horror in the shoe department: A mean Jimmy Choo lizard mule with a lace woven through slits, like dental floss through teeth, culminating in a charming, delicate...bow. This from the supposed heir to Manolo Blahnik? Nearby, in a sub-section dubbed "Scoop Sexy": a leopard-print bag with a big pink leather you-know-what slapped right on the front. Leopard and leather may deserve to fall under the header "sexy," even if the leather is pink, but bows? It just doesn't ring true.

It's not like a tie on a wrap dress, which gives a woman agency; she decides when and how to tie it. A bow comes tight and prefabricated, like you don't know how to do up your own shoelace.

Indeed, when rich ladies on the Upper East Side wear those Chanel ballet flats with bows on their toes, it's like they're telling the world, "Some guy is taking care of me, so I can dress like a little girl." Bows are sinister precisely because they're infantilizing. That's why a lot of men are baffled by the bows that show up in the middle of bras. It's a case of mixed signals.

They're saying minimalism is over. Thing is, minimalism suited Manhattanites, who don't want their movements impeded. And while fringe and ruffles may have their place in this society predicated on efficiency– maybe –this bow situation just seems like so much desperate anti-minimalist flailing on the part of the fashion people.

Fortunately, there's a sign that the trend may be peaking: Recently Miuccia Prada joined perennial bow champions Kate Spade and Cynthia Rowley in foisting these little pieces of frippery upon us (see this month's In Style , page 90, for an example). Even with her track record, however, Ms. Prada can't make bows ironic. They're just too dumb.

–Alexandra Jacobs

Mr. Cattrall

Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha Jones, the slut on HBO's Sex and the City , got a real husband a couple of years ago. He's an audiophile from Boston named Mark Levinson. In high school, Mr. Levinson and Ms. Cattrall would never have met. He was the A/V guy who dug jazz. She was the beautiful star of school plays.

Here's how it happened. It was in early 1998, right after Ms. Cattrall had come to New York to shoot the pilot for Sex and the City . Stood up by friends and looking for some excitement, she headed downtown to the Blue Note to hear pianist and Scientologist Chick Corea. Mr. Levinson spotted her across a very crowded room. They were both divorced and both kind of famous. For 20 years, she'd been showing up in roles in mediocre movies. For 30 years, he'd been making and selling high- end stereo equipment to aficionados and celebrities. To stereo geeks, he's the Manolo Blahnik of sound.

"I was looking for a mate, not a date," Mr. Levinson said recently. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his Madison Avenue stereo equipment store, Red Rose Music, which is right next to the Whitney Museum. He had removed his shoes. His arms were wrapped around a vintage tambura, a lute-like Indian instrument. Ms. Cattrall was there, too, listening to her husband pluck the strings and tell their old story.

So, yes, Mr. Levinson and Ms. Cattrall locked eyes that night at the Blue Note. Mr. Levinson, who also plays the flugelhorn and a 17th-century double bass, did not know much about pop culture, so he had missed Ms. Cattrall in The Bonfire of the Vanities and in Mannequin , in which she comes alive for Andrew McCarthy. Ms. Cattrall, for her part, did not know much about stereos; when they met, all she had was a Sharp boombox. But they hit it off, anyway. He proposed a little while later at a bar mitzvah. "I'm not exactly sure how it transpired," he said.

"I do," Ms. Cattrall interjected. "He introduced me to a friend as his fiancée. It was the first time he'd ever said it. But it was very mutual."

Anyway, Mr. Levinson, now 52, with gray hair and bushy eyebrows, must deal with questions he never thought of before, such as: How do you like seeing your wife hump a fireman on TV? (In the show's current season, Ms. Cattrall's character romped, pretty graphically, with a fireman.)

"I'm very proud of her, she's doing brave work," Mr. Levinson said. "Kim said the fireman was one of the most supportive partners she's had. You can tell from his eyes he's a caregiver. He has warm, caring eyes. His whole presence was very sensitive. I think in a way it's a victory for the show. They could have had a stereotype stallion-built guy. But they took someone who risks his life for others."

Mr. Levinson was born in Oakland and grew up in Boston. His father was Daniel Levinson, the Yale psychology professor who wrote Seasons of a Man's Life , which Gail Sheehy later popularized in Passages . His father also happened to be a big jazz fan and introduced his son to Louis Armstrong, among others. "We got our first record player when I was six years old," he said. "It was a Garrard changer, with the plastic switch. The arm rotated and came down. They were very human players. Back then there was much more of a sense of humanity."

Mr. Levinson went off to Brandeis University, but after two weeks he split to play bass with Sonny Rollins. When he was 19, the pianist Paul Bley offered him a chance to go on tour in Europe as his bass player. "I asked my dad what he thought and he said, 'Go for it, you won't regret it.' So I got on the plane and went." Later he studied Indian music in California and took lessons from Jimmy Peacock.

But in 1969, Mr. Levinson started to think about how to make the music he made sound better on record. At the original Woodstock, one of his homemade soundboards was put in at the last minute for all the bands. "All the music at Woodstock went through it," he said. "I can say I was at Woodstock, I guess."

The Mark Levinson brand of stereo equipment was born in the basement of his parents' house in Woodbridge, Conn., in 1971. Within a decade, it was one of the most prized brand names among audio purists.

In 1980, he lost control of his company. (The Levinson name is still marketed by Madrigal, without his input.) In 1984, he started another company, Cello, but lost control of that one, too. Now Cello is a French restaurant.

At Red Rose, Mr. Levinson sells a $10,000 three-piece system made by a company called Audio Prism, which he bought out. The speakers alone are $3,000 a pop. He's also helping Sony develop a new CD and player called SACD that Mr. Levinson said "must" replace our current systems.

"Think about it. We're listening to a CD system that was designed 20 years ago," he said. "It's no good, it's outdated. And there is evidence that the frequencies CDs are recorded on now are harming us, making us disoriented and unhappy. There's a reason we don't like sitting down and listening to a CD the way we did a record. SACD actually mimics the warmth of records. It's amazing."

Ms. Cattrall stood to leave. She had to film another episode, leaving her husband to sell stereos alone.

–Roger Friedman

Terror struck.

So Foxy Brown teetered over to West 55th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues and just around the corner from the Manolo Blahnik boutique at 31 West 54th Street, to the shop of Carlos Mesquita.

In a city of shoe passion, Mr. Mesquita, a 49-year-old Portuguese-born Frenchman who can reinvigorate any pair of Manolo Blahniks is–well, he is a man . In fact, he is something more than a man. There isn't a plastic surgeon, a personal trainer, a Frédéric Fekkai in New York with more women who swear by him. For Mr. Mesquita is the man who can save Manolo Blahniks.

Manolo Blahniks are the latest incarnation of the shoe; their structure has the grandeur of a new urban architecture, indicating power, culture and femininity. And what a cargo they carry!

They are so phenomenally uncomfortable and expensive that they suggest the wearer doesn't necessarily have to walk anywhere. But when the wearer actually hoists herself up and totters, her legs are suddenly longer and sleeker and more decisive, and it is clear to the world that she is a woman in command.

Oh, and they show toe cleavage.

Take Elaine Showalter, English professor at Princeton and former director of the Modern Language Association. She knows she'll be hobbled. ("It's kind of a geisha situation," she explained. "It's even hard to stand.") Nonetheless, she really loves her shoes. "Princeton is a practical shoe place," she said wistfully. But it didn't come between her and a pair of Manolo Blahniks. "My trophy shoes! They're so beautiful, I could exhibit them. It's true! I could. They are works of art."

Mr. Mesquita is the only cobbler in New York Manolo Blahnik himself recommends. And so he has the women of New York–who, if they are passionate about anything, worship shoes–on their knees.

For instance, when Foxy Brown, who probably doesn't have to wait on line in many shops, got to Mr. Mesquita's store–which has the delightfully proletarian name of Shoe Service Plus–he made her cool her pinched toes and wait on line. He also assessed Ms. Brown's general style. "I can't say she was sexy," he said. "She just, you know, the belly!" Mr. Mesquita dismissed the whole midriff thing with a wave of his hand.

"Sometimes, a limousine will park outside, and they'll come right in, and I make them wait," Mr. Mesquita said. "I tell them to shut up. The rich one, the poor one. The nice little cute black one. The Chinese one. Everybody in line! And shut up !"

On one recent afternoon, the store was packed. Six-foot Danish models–Manolo sent them–in suede and mink ponchos zipped up each other's boots. At the front of the line was a girl in a pair of Gucci alligator pumps. She clutched a Manolo knee-high ponyskin boot. "I've only worn it three times!" she said, then she looked at him with the pathos of a 6-year-old bringing her beloved pet Pekinese to the vet. "Can you fix them?" The heel had come completely unglued.

Mr. Mesquita looked at her over the rims of his glasses. He said … nothing. Mr. Mesquita shook his head, he filled out a ticket. He waved her out the door. She looked back over her shoulder as Mr. Mesquita wiggled the broken heel around. Shaking, shaking, shaking his head.

His next customer was a British girl with bleachy hair and a corduroy skirt. "The bright blue shoes, remember?"

Mr. Mesquita looked at her. "They're not done."

The girl left the store. Mr. Mesquita wandered to the stacks of shoes that fill the space behind the counter. He found the bright blue shoe: a glittery Dolce & Gabbana pump with a metallic heel. The British girl had left a neon pink kitten heel as the replacement.

"She's crazy," Mr. Mesquita said, holding the heel to the shoe. "I don't even start it."

Mr. Mesquita knows that shoes are a woman's most coveted object, and a fascinating obsession for affluent women in a postfeminist society.

"You're dealing with people who are under really conflicting demands," said Catherine MacKinnon, the law professor and feminist scholar. "The demands are to succeed like a man, but to be a lady. The idea is that you've got to find some kind of way to be feminine. And wearing these shoes is one. They define it as sexy for a woman to be uncomfortable, thrown off-balance, physically contorted, in a posture in which she may fall over. And she can't run away. This is a very specific setup for the subordination of women through sex in a constant, everyday physical presentation. A lot of women claim that a lot of things that are subordinating women make them feel powerful. And maybe they do. It doesn't make them be powerful. It doesn't mean that it gives them power."

"What stilettos do is they present one's rear end accessibly," said Ms. MacKinnon. "That's what they're for. They also make it hard to stand up straight, and to walk and to run. They make one tippy, that is to say, easy to push over. They present one's rear end pushed out in the back, and one's breasts pushed out in the front for easy sexual access."

Shoes in general have always been pleasing to women. They handle them; they model them; they are seen–and noticed–in them; they gaze at them; they pamper them. And, of course, they suffer for them. And when they do, Mr. Mesquita awaits.

"I see in the movies, the ladies remove the dress, and they're in the skimpy little underwear, and their shoes!" explained Mr. Mesquita from the perch of a shoeshine chair in his shop. "You know, they sit on the bed, they cross the legs, and you see the shoes!"

Manolo Blahniks are about the sexiest shoe a woman can wear. They're high, they're sleek, they're about $500 a pair. They have four-inch heels. And in our girlish, skin-flashing fashion culture, these crippling shoes, in some circuitous way, have come to mean power to certain women who are gleefully rejecting that whole Prada Sport sneaker-sole thing. They are a high-decibel declaration of femininity and, as anyone who's ever even heard of pornography knows, sexuality.

"I have some of my mom's Charles Jourdans from the 70's," said Melissa de la Cruz, who's writing a book about a fashion victim. "Gold heel sandals with a gold cord that snakes around my ankle. Whenever I wear them, men offer to lick my feet."

She confesses that her boyfriend has had, on occasion, to carry her home. "I think he kind of likes it," she said.

"A lot of men throughout my life have said they'd like to put my shoes on their mantle and worship them," said advertising designer Ronnie Newhouse, who once bought 14 pairs of Manolo Blahniks in one visit. "And I've always said No, I don't want to give up my good shoes!"

But high heels in general have long been the stuff of feminine debate. Some claim they embody empowerment. "They are the ultimate dangerous-babe shoes!" said Ms. de la Cruz. "The epitome of femininity but with a hard, cruel edge! Most people tell me I could probably kill a man with my shoes. Especially these ones from Prada '97 or so." Others cry macho oppression. Of course, men are stronger: They're wearing sensible soles and arch supports.

"Women think they're communicating something about themselves in their shoes. It's their sex appeal, their sexual availability," explained Holly Brubach, the former style editor of The New York Times and author of A Dedicated Follower of Fashion who has definitely been carried–if not helped along –from cab to door before. "If it's a spike heel, men see sex. Other than that, I don't think they get the subtlety."

At the Manolo Blahnik boutique on 54th Street, they do a brisk business in gift certificates. "The men come in all alone, and they look around, and they say, how much for my wife to buy these?" said store manager Abby Bennet. "They love to see their wives in high heels, not in these clunky, thick heavy-looking shoes that some people think are in fashion. I have 70-year-old men who try and force their wives to buy high heels."

So Mr. Mesquita has his own territory of power. His customers come to him–some fly in from other countries just to prop their feet on his counter. He deigns to repair.

For Foxy Brown, he came up with a little alteration that made her shoes walkable, if barely. "She told me, Carlos, from now on I come back to you," he said. "But what you did for my shoes? Don't do it for anyone else. I want to be the only one with that style." Did Mr. Mesquita keep his promise to Foxy Brown?

"I did it for a lady in Montreal. And a lady from Venezuela. And a lady from Puerto Rico.

"They don't want to lose me," Mr. Mesquita said. "And they know I turn down 40 percent of the business that comes in. I raised my prices, they don't mind. They say, Carlos, can I pay you double and you do it faster, and I say, wait on line. Have some respect !"

"I understand his philosophy, I think," said Robin Wunsh, the shoe editor at Mademoiselle . "And so I only ask for things I know he can get done."

Mr. Blahnik discovered him in June 1983, when Mr. Mesquita worked at Top Service, a shoe repair shop on Seventh Avenue. But Mr. Mesquita has since taken matters into his own hands. His trademark is a thin rubber film with which he covers paper-thin soles. It makes the shoes last longer, but, according to some–including Mr. Blahnik–it also destroys the pitch of the shoe. "Manolo says, 'Carlos! Don't do that to the shoes!' I say, 'Don't tell me what's good for the shoes.' And then I get in a fight with Abby [the manager of the 54th Street boutique]. I tell her, you don't know nothing about that. Nothing! And besides. It sells like pancakes."

Or take Ms. Newhouse, who lives in London and New York. She said she "had read somewhere that Jeeves in London had the best shoe repair. And they're very expensive, so I brought in seven pairs of brand-new Manolo Blahniks, and I brought them one with Carlos' rubber film on it, and I said, 'Can you do this?' 'Yes, yes, yes. However, it will take two weeks.' So, two weeks and twice the price, I got my seven pairs back and they were all ruined! Some were silk and they rubbed glue all over my silk! They made platform shoes out of most of them. You can't even stand because they totally ruined the pitch. It was a very expensive lesson."

Now, when Ms. Newhouse comes to New York, she carries a little bag full of shoes and heads to 55th Street.

Mr. Mesquita's prices are low, especially considering the price of the shoes he handles: $18 for the legendary rubber film, $15 to fix a snapped stiletto; $30 to resole; $70 to mold a pair of boots to your leg; $10 to stretch a pair out; $12 to steam-clean; $16 to tighten stretched-out slingbacks.

Mr. Mesquita has a waiting list for the boot molding. "Normally, people can buy very expensive things, but they don't have the legs to wear it!" He laughed and waved some boots–Gucci, green, suede, stiletto: "All the little ladies, they're too small, or too roundy!"

Mr. Mesquita shook his head at a Gucci boot, which belongs to an Allure editor. It didn't even fit over her calf. "I tell her, 'Why you buy that shoe?'" he said. "'Are you stupid or what?' I have to be clear. And she says, 'How come you tell me that?' And I say, 'Because it's the truth! You have to know the truth. If I don't tell you, nobody will!'"

"When we get off the wobbly cobblestone streets of Paris and Milan, deskinned heels get miraculously reskinned. Slingbacks get tightened," said Vanity Fair fashion director Elizabeth Saltzman, who always phones in her shoe repair requests, and then sends an armful of shoes down with a messenger. "Sometimes I'm too shy to ask for things, though, so I just go and buy a new pair," Ms. Saltzman laughed. "Because I'm sure Manolo wouldn't exist without me!"

Mr. Mesquita sees breakdowns fairly often. "Some people come in and say, 'Oh, I'm rushed, I'm rushed', and I say, 'So come back tomorrow! You have some shoes to wear.' Well, the lady came in and blah, blah, blah, she started crying, because I told her the truth. I said, 'Look, don't come to me nervous. Because you come to me nervous, you make me nervous.' Too many nervous customers a day gonna drive me crazy. Then she starts crying like I was a little rude to her. She cried, cried. 'Oh, Carlos, my shoes! My shoes! I can't walk, help me!'

"And I told her, 'It's normal for me to put you in your place, 'cause if not, you're gonna drive me crazy!'"

With deference and gratitude, the lady vowed to come back.

The whole of Europe waiting for trains in the station. As I am a firm believer in the adage "If you pay peanuts you get monkeys," I buy ticket for first-class carriage. Instead of monkeys, I get gorillas. British and American investment bankers in their mid-to-late 30's, suit jackets off, dull neckties. Each and every one screaming down cellular telephones like they were calling in bids at a bachelor party.

"When's the floor show?" I asked the banker sitting across from me.

You could have a field day mining the information you overhear if you understood business better. Something about an elf named Aquitaine driving a Ford? Goldman Sachs having a yen for Nestlé?

Yes, yes, Dear Diary, still "listening" for Hillary Clinton but also figured I could squeeze in a few days in England. Remember when I met the certain British aristocrat at the bar at the Ritz in Paris and he told me, "The way things are going in England even you, Phyllis Stine, could become a lady." My mother always wanted me to become a lady.

July 24. Red alert, red alert: nothing to wear. Confusion about my reservation at Claridge's when I arrived last night–no room at the inn–then I remembered my old pal Mr. Pepper was staying with his people outside London. Mr. Pepper's people, all huge WASP's from just about the oldest hive in Philadelphia, rented a suite of cottages through England's National Trust for two weeks at nothing less than Hampton Court Palace. Called Mr. Pepper on his cell phone and he said come right over, there was plenty of room. Next thing, I was entering the gates of the former home to Henry VIII, under the conditions of an almost full moon, about 45 minutes in some direction from London along the Thames River. You never saw a place where you would want to hang your new Dior fox and rabbit hat more.

Woke up early. Put on Jean-Paul Gaultier lace sweater and tweed ostrich-feathered skirt and five-inch brown alligator Manolo Blahnik heels and proceeded to breakfast, thinking I looked more Stella Tennant than Stella Tennant. And Pepper's people, including five enchanting children under the age of 9, looked at me aghast, as if I was naked. Big deal: The National Trust forbids you from wearing high heels as they worry about scratched floors. And they mean business. I'll die if I wear flats, I said. They give me low blood pressure. But a rule's a rule, especially at Hampton Court Palace, enriched with a history of beheadings.

Borrowed a pair of Pepper's gym shorts, a T-shirt that read "I'd Rather Be Reading Jane Austen" and a pair of rubber flip-flops from his sister and hoped no one would see me. Piled into a car and went sightseeing in the countryside. To think 30 years ago I was bumbling in a Volkswagen bus to Woodstock. Now here I was piling into a Mercedes with five children dressed practically exactly the same. What a great mandala life is. Of course I adore children, but I didn't know what to say when one of them asked about the little scars behind my ears.

"Oh, just some still slightly red badges of mother's courage," I fudged.

July 25. Everyone went off in different directions and I couldn't stand another day in flats so have stayed in bed at the palace with books and magazines and lots of cuppas (cups of tea).

Yesterday we visited Painshill, an 18th-century garden with amusing grotto and, next, a wonderful country house called Polesdon Lacey, most recently owned by Mrs. Ronald Greville, a noted Edwardian hostess, but what's the point? Nothing was for sale.

July 26. Rose early and headed right to the shops in London. Between Harvey Nichols and Voyage, by noon I was outfitted for the duration of my stay at Hampton Court Palace. Arrived at Manolo Blahnik's shop on Old Church Street to find annual sale going on and long line. Sorry, but I had to do it: yelled "fire." That worked. Bought seven pairs of low-heeled mules. Visited the Victoria and Albert Museum for exhibition of Victorian photographs by Clementina, Lady Hawarden–not for sale–and, then, went up to the Serpentine Gallery for exhibition of optical paintings by Bridget Riley, also not for sale. Told Pepper I thought it was a waste to spend time in a museum or art gallery when I could be "listening" for Hillary. Concerning art, sooner or later Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis will own everything, so I'll see it there.

July 27. Bedtime. What a day. Began with long ride into Surrey and Sussex for more country-house tours because I wanted to be with the children, frankly. Wore a little shirt and short Ann Demuelemeester white skirt and low Manolo Blahnik mules. As far as I can tell the whole of Surrey is trying to be posh like Beverly Hills. Pepper a little cranky today and in big rush. Our loo break involved scampering into field beside the road where I was stung by slings and arrows of cruel nettles. And I just waxed in Paris!

Arrived at Arundel Castle just as Duke of Norfolk was having a walkabout. He's a hale fellow, well met. Castle groaning with tourists. Midway through crammed picture gallery–nothing for sale, again–I became disoriented. Reached for helpful hands of Pepper's people's children and found myself surrounded, instead, by five offspring from another clan. Rising to the occasion before anyone started to cry, I instructed the children to sit in a circle around me and I would tell them a story.

"Once upon a time," I began because it's a very good place to begin with, "there was a little girl named Wallis …"

Billy's List: Quiz time!

1. "Fir" is:

a. Prince Charles' nickname for Prince William, who just started shaving.

b. Gallic for "man" and also name of Daryl K.'s first men's wear collection.

c. the title of Björk's new CD with cover photo by Pablo Alfaro.

2. Next for choreographer Matthew (Swan Lake ) Bourne is an all-male production of Bizet's Carmen , who in this version works as which of the following?

a. A Paris fashion designer.

b. A British soccer player.

c. An American garage mechanic.

3. Who is Webbie Tookay?

a. The Beverly Hills cosmetologist who has perfected a system for hair replacement.

b. A digitally composed virtual fashion model represented by Elite in Europe and created in Sweden to resemble a cross between Tyra Banks and Isabelle Adjani.

c. He runs the canteen at Talk magazine.

Answers: (1) b; (2) c; (3) b.

Suddenly it's shoe paradise out there. You're walking down Madison Avenue on a torrid day and you see scantily clad ladies, cute pooches, new real estate developments. I see shoes. Shoes I'm thinking of buying, shoes I've already bought, shoes I can't afford, shoes I suddenly believe I can afford after trying them on, shoes I don't need, shoes I will never understand. They sit in the shop windows and they mock me.

Who knew that pumps could come in two pieces, like a bathing suit? The mules, the slides, the slingbacks, the slip-ons, the wedges, the Mary Janes, the Sabrina heels, the thongs, the jellies, the ballet slippers conjuring up my misspent youth. On and on they march, each more charming and flattering than the last, dancing tirelessly through my daydreams, till, like the doomed heroine in my new favorite movie, The Red Shoes , I find myself drawn to the cash register, charge plate in hand. If I call my credit card a "charge plate," it makes me feel more like some luxuriously kept woman of yesteryear, with mincing step and toy poodle, perhaps, instead of what I am: a no-account spendthrift with a grim, bargain-seeking stride and a hairball-hucking cat.

I never thought I would be a "shoe person." I was always a "bag person." Shoe people, I believed, were frivolous souls with wildly fluctuating waistlines whose justification for their little habit was, Well, at least my foot size doesn't change . Bag people were cool, calm and contemplative; shoe people were irrational and jittery. Bag people were aloof and appraising; shoe people traveled in packs, squealing a lot and calling things "cute." Men who worked in shoestores freaked me out.

Now those same men are my buddies. They call other branches to check on size availability for me. We have a deal: I'll parade in front of them, and they'll cluck appreciatively. We talk about the shoes by name: Alouetta. Sharon. The Mouse.

Suspicion dawned that I had really become a shoe person when I received my first pedicure, a gift, a few weeks ago at the Bliss Spa. I gazed guiltily down while a nice young Russian woman submerged my feet in a large vat of whole milk, the kind of thing for which her countrypeople used to wait on line for days so that they could feed their families. The scent of almonds wafted up at me. Then I stifled giggles in my fist-other, more seasoned shoe people looking on indulgently-as I was sanded, pounded, polished, slipped into a pair of cheap flip-flops to dry, and after a decent interval sent out again into the world, which suddenly seemed awash in cute sandals. I promptly purchased some.

I tried to set limits; cut corners. I decided that it was O.K. to have "two" in each category of shoe-a basic, sensible black one, and a colored "alternate"-and then decided that it was O.K. to make an exception for Mary Janes. Mary Janes could be my "signature" shoe, the way that some people have signature scents, and I could have as many of them as I pleased.

Manolo Blahnik held one of its famous sales, and I thriftily used my unlimited Metrocard to speed me there and back. (A few years ago, I thought Manolo Blahnik was a type of exotic bird-and who knows, perhaps in a way he is.)

I reasoned that, as a runner, it was healthy to wear a different pair each day, with varying levels of heel. Better for the foot.

And I am tall, as women go, so I decided I needed a full complement of flats so as not to intimidate people. Then I thought, the hell with that, I'll stalk around in heels! Men can look up at me and love it!

People began to make comments. Where did those come from, they'd say. I could only shrug and smile a sickly smile.

But it only became really clear that I had a problem that sorry day I slunk shamefacedly into Lechter's, the home supply store, and bought one of those plastic "shoe files" that you hang in your closet to keep yourself organized. I always thought that only Marla Maples owned "shoe files."

O.K., I'll admit it. It was my second "shoe file."

Shoe paradise, it turns out, is hell on the wallet, not to mention the psyche. You feel foolish. Frivolous. So I turned to some shoe people veterans, and culled a set of rationalizations they've developed for spending more money than we have on these things. That made me feel a whole lot better.

If you buy something and then return it, we agreed, the credit is free money-yours to spend! On shoes, or whatever! If you go on vacation and come home with extra travelers checks, it's play money- Monopoly money-all for you. Why not buy a pair of shoes ? Conversely, if you never go on vacation because you're such a dedicated, paranoid New Yorker that you're too afraid to fly, stop working (they'll miss you!), or give up your treasured routines (out-of-town editions of The Times don't carry the wedding announcements!), that's a huge chunk of money saved right there. Shoe money, I now call it.

If you lose something, and then find it again, you are entitled to spend what it would have cost you to replace the original object, since you had already written it off, plus an extra treat, a pair of shoes perhaps, to celebrate the sweet euphoria of finding it.

Moreover, the money you don't spend on therapy is free to spend on the goods of your choosing, say, shoes. Many people believe that shopping is akin to therapy, and unlike therapy, at least you come home with something concrete to show for it, like a nice shoe or two.

However much money you are spending on shoes, it is surely not as much as Shoshanna Lonstein. Similarly, however many pairs of shoes you own, it will never be as many as there are in In Style . Your spending on shoes is part of what is fueling the good economy. Go, bull market, go! And speaking of the bull market, you could be spending a lot more money on rent than you are-a lot more. That money you are not spending on rent is, again, now available for the goods

of your choosing. Like shoes. Or for the more established among us, you could have paid the asking price for your co-op, or had some horrible contracting experience. You didn't? One word: shoes.

What about pregnancy? Everybody's getting pregnant, but you're not. Babies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, with no guarantee that they won't turn out to be maniacs that push people off subway platforms. Shoes are only public menaces insofar as they cause blisters (those pink clogs also produced splinters). Also, pregnant people probably shouldn't wear high heels, which means that someone has to.

You don't have a car, do you? The garage alone could pay the rent on a nice one-bedroom in most normal cities. If you eschew the garage, there are parking tickets to pay, there's your lost time for getting up early to move the thing on alternate-side-of-the-street morning … nah. Shoes are better.

They're far better, as well, than expensive grooming processes. Facials? That country-air glow lasts for about half an hour. Massages? Are you kidding-let a stranger touch me? Yoga? Bah.

Even a pedicure only lasts so long.