By Jabulile Ngwenya
Most women match their footwear to their handbags, and have a few pairs that they rotate depending on the season or the occasion.
Not Barbara McGorian ,51, who manages The Star's (sister paper to Pretoria News) education department. She has about 150 pairs, which she matches to every outfit she wears. And that number, she says, is the result of some discipline: to make room for new purchases, each season she gives away many pairs to friends and family.
"I have always loved shoes," she says. She can even remember her first pair of heels, which she got for a social when she was 13. "They had a square heel about 5cm high, and were pearly beige with a bow in the front."
She receives many compliments on her shoes from women. "Today was the first time a man came up to me and said, 'I love your shoes'." She was wearing yellow, lace-up heels.
She has a small cushion embroidered with the words, "If the shoe fits, buy it in every colour" - advice she seems to have followed. "I have shoes in every colour of the rainbow."
At her home in Glenhazel, she has her shoes stored in cupboards in several rooms, dividing them into summer and winter collections. "I love boots, especially if they come with stiletto heels and are made in good leather or patent leather," she says.
It's a substantial collection for a woman with size three feet. Most of the shoes are from Rage, but she also buys Nine West, Launch and Footwork.
She'll spend up to R6 000 a year on shoes. Her most expensive are a pair of knee-high boots she bought for R4 000, while the cheapest are sandals that cost R27. McGorian isn't a brand snob, and will buy from Mr Price if the shoes co-ordinate well with an outfit.
She admits that many of her shoes are very uncomfortable, but says she's buying them for how they look and will put up with the odd blister.
"Recently at work, the heel came straight off my shoe," she says, "and, on another occasion, when I was at the Alhambra Theatre in a formal outfit, the heel came off!"
She almost never wears flats, saying that heels give her confidence even if they make her suffer in the cause of fashion. She doesn't follow fashion slavishly but says, "I won't wear a really old-fashioned heel or toe style, even if I have the right colour, and I don't wear shoes that are worn out or scuffed."
McGorian says she doesn't have an addiction to shoes - it's more like "a fetish or hobby".
If she is depressed or having a bad day, it won't make her go shoe shopping. "But if I am shopping," she says, "I will be looking for shoes."
"Sometimes my husband will tell me I have enough shoes," says McGorian, "but I don't think a woman can ever have too many shoes.
"If you want your shoes to really match your outfit and not just go with what you are wearing, then you must have different shoes of the same colour to make sure they are suitable for the various items of clothing - and you also need unusual colours to match the unusual colours of the clothes."
That's logic Imelda Marcos couldn't argue with. McGorian also doesn't see anything strange in packing more shoes than clothes when she goes on holiday, even if she does buy a whole lot more during her trip away.