A couple of weeks ago I was walking through the theatre district in NYC. I was wearing my usual attire for a cold day that is going to involve lots of sweating - a leotard and tights covered by black sweatpants tucked into boots and an oversized very thin sweater with giant holes in it, with the fur-hooded cloak over top which I really ought to take a picture of and post one of these days. I love that sweater. An old boyfriend had cut a bunch of holes in it as a teenager in a fit of rage, accidentally shrunk it in the dryer, and handed it over to me because it really did look better on me. It serves as a layering piece in the winter and a nicely ventilated cover up in the summer. In situations where many women would default to a camisole and sweater set, I pair it with a decorative bra or translucent paper-thin long sleeve shirt.

I’m allowing my love for this sweater to take us on a tangent.

I was walking, headed for the den of consensual torture known as ballet class, and a man stopped me on the street. He really wanted me to know that my outfit was “Fabulous” but wearing boots as dirty as mine with it was a sin against the rest of the garments.

Seriously.

“Sin against the rest of it.”

I knew my boots were dirty. I’d been slogging through ice, snow, salt, and those nasty puddles that collect on street corners for the past four and a half months in them. I was waiting for reasonable certainty that snowpocalypse 2011 was over to do anything about removing the salt and water stains.

90 minutes of plies and tendus later, I was much more concerned with dragging myself home than the cleanliness of my footwear, and the interaction was mostly forgotten.

Yesterday I was wandering through the JetBlue terminal at JFK and I heard “Your dress is fabulous” from the general direction of the shoe shine stand. The man working at it was looking at me. I was wearing my dirty boots. The circuitousness of the whole thing amused me and my boots were impeccably shined until I walked through a puddle on my way into my hotel that evening.

Here is a picture that is slightly more about the boobs than the boots:

(boots - Fluevog, slip masquerading as a dress - Betsey Johnson)

-Stoya