My aunt who is the Vice-President in one of the divisions of a huge global firm, has a thing for shoes.
Correction, she has a total fetish with shoes.
Expensive shoes.
We’re talking $900-a-pop shoes.
It has gotten so out of hand (in my opinion), that she hoards these shoes in her childrens’ rooms in their closets, and has basically taken over the ENTIRE CLOSET all to herself filled with boxes of these expensive shoes and her husband, has a little corner rack for his things.
I am not even sure she even wears these shoes, but it made me wonder if it was really a collection as she called it, or a hoarding tendency tinged with a need to fill that empty, blank space in her life by buying lots of expensive designer shoes she will never wear.
(This so reminded me of the movie In Her Shoes, actually)
The difference for me between hoarding and collecting, is that a collection is either used or displayed.
If it’s stuck in boxes, gathering dust in the garage or in other peoples’ rooms and you don’t even really know how many shoes you have, and what they are… then it’s hoarding.
Expensive hoarding, but hoarding nonetheless.
On a money note, if I were to think about how many shoes she had at $900 a pop, I think it’d be upwards to $100,000 just in shoes alone, not to mention her clothing.
Still, it seems to.. make her.. happy when she shops for them and then stuffs them in her closet, never to be pulled out to see the light of day again.
It just makes me wonder why she doesn’t just go ahead and build an awesome shoe room where she gets to see all of them displayed in neat little rows by colour and heel height.
I think I collect more than I hoard, namely in jewellery (I do love me a good necklace!), but it’s something I have to be cognizant of when I want to add a new piece to my collection.
