My Mom the Style Icon: The Golden Sandals

My mother has always been one of my biggest style influences. She’s the person who told me that pencil skirts suit me best. She’s been through bell-bottoms and baggy sweaters. She somehow has a knack of knowing which style trends are sticking around and which ones are just a flash in the pan. Basically, she’s a bit of a style guru, and she’s one of my favorite people to go shopping with.

Since it’s summer, my mom’s been wearing sandals a lot lately. The other day, when we were walking around Soho, she wore a particularly stylish pair of gold sandals. You might look at these sandals (right) and think to yourself that they were purchased recently–in fact, the sandals below are a pair I spotted in Kate Spade‘s Soho shop on our shopping excursion–but in fact, dear reader, my mother purchased them about 20 years ago from a Gucci sale.

What I love about this particular fact is that it goes to show you that styles really do cycle back, and what was old will serve as inspiration to new generations (perhaps because the new generations are influences by our mothers as style icons?). It also goes to show you that my mother’s belief that quality accessories will last you a lifetime is in fact true. My mother has belts, shoes, and purses that she’s collected through careful sale shopping (ah, to return to the days when outlets and sample sales truly provided a great opportunity to get in on some quality duds…) throughout the last few decades, and every once in awhile, she reminds me that someday those items will be mine and my future daughter’s. I like to think that we’ll put them to good use for another 20 years each.

Update: Because of the website reformat, I’ve lost some of the photos on the site including the ones that used to be above.