Christophe, the editor-in-chief, gave me carte blanche this summer. And it's going to hurt.
Very bad.
For this occasion, I have prepared for you a series of portraits like no other: these are the extraordinary (and intimate!) stories of men of style whose sartorial whims often border on the purest madness. You were able to read the first episode dedicated to the denimhead , the second about an unscrupulous hypebeaster and the third about a preppy who is looking for real love , well now, here is the fourth episode which takes a close look at a rare specimen of calceophile.
The exquisite illustrations are produced by the excellent Alexis Bruchon and his poetic touch.
Good reading.
PS: This is not a social satire.
"I got married because
gave the right to a pure wool suit
and leather shoes:
that's where elegance leads."
Michel Audiard
I
Alexandre Solère listened and immediately stopped moving.
He heard footsteps in the hallway. And it was getting closer. He cut off the smooth jazz flowing from the speakers, the better to listen to what the hallway was saying. From the sharp sound of the heels against the parquet floor, we thought they were women's shoes. But that didn't mean anything, he thought, shaking his head. The low volume of these regular clicking sounds suggested that it was a person as thin and light as a stick insect. Solère listened as best he could, as one calculates the distance of a storm by the time there is between the rumbling and the lightning. The spacing between each step indicated that it wasn't very tall either. The noises slowed down and, he was sure, she was at the door.
When the doorbell rang, Solère made a sudden childish movement as if to protect his marbles, and looked at the man beside him. That's when he had this heartbreaking thought: it was his wife.
The man stood up and, after a moment of hesitation, went to open it. Solère wanted to beg him not to do it. In the harsh light of the hallway, you could see the black handbag she held like a newborn, the majestic bun on the top of her head, the big, sad, black-painted eyes whose eyelashes didn't want them. no longer finished and the delicacy of her legs, not heavy.
It was her.
He felt shame physically, as if drains of steel were forcing their way through his veins. Monsieur Solère burst into tears for the first time in a long time, because his wife had just discovered his secret.
II
An hour earlier.
Susanne Solère wanted to blanch onions. But she didn't know what primary color would turn them from blue to white. For now, they were screaming for help at the bottom of the pan as she drenched their fleshy scales with molten oil. In the middle of this yellow fog of fried food, her husband Alexandre explained to her that he was not going to have dinner with her. And, while Susanne, who had a tender heart, cried profusely when she saw the onions fry, something struck her: her husband was becoming more and more strange.
The onions, very unstable, turned scarlet red.
It was Thursday and, that evening, a program was on that her husband had never missed since it was on. They were science fiction stories or unsolved detective stories, she didn't really know. However, Alexandre would not look at her this evening. He explained to him that his office colleague, after a false beginner's computer manipulation, had deleted part of an important program which was to be presented the next day to a major client. We couldn't do without him who was, after all, the referent on this project. No choice, he had to go.
Monsieur Solère put on his trench coat and his black moccasins, which she hated so much to always see. Always the same, always those black moccasins that he had everywhere, like the other day at the supermarket. And it reminded her of this story: while they were waiting in line at the cash register, she had caught him ogling a man a little further away. A man with a large forehead and greasy hair. From bottom to top, eyes glued to the body. And the man, feeling the gaze, turned towards him and her husband gave him an almost imperceptible wink, accompanied by a smirk. The man gave it back to him.
Weird.
- You know him ? she asked him.
- Who is that ?
- The one you just winked at.
- But not at all, he said, dancing from one foot to the other.
- I saw you blink.
- But I was in profile... I didn't wink... it's absurd... I simply blinked both eyes like normal people do. You know, it's a fairly common physiological process in human beings...
- Oh. Oh. You did it in a really strong way. And, I would say, accomplice too!, she added.
- In a complicit way? But not at all! Darling ! What are you going to invent there?
He was starting to get angry, to make fun of her. And if there was one thing that Madame Solère didn't like, it was being looked down upon.
- I know what I saw, you know.
The young cashier, whose budding skin made him glow like a moon, looked at them one after the other as if he were watching a tennis match, to the sound of the items beeping as they passed the scanner. barcodes.
When he returned from the races, the radio host was busy inventing hilarious jokes, but in the car, no one was upset.
Yet another day, she wanted to surprise him while he was working late. She dropped the kids off at her mother's house, went to get some burgers and fries at the drive-in, and showed up at her office where she found the door closed. When she called him on his cell, he said he had just left and that they must have just missed each other. When Madame Solère got her hands on her desktop computer, it was cold.
Definitely yes, he was weird.
As her husband left the house, dragging his feet and huffing pointedly, she quietly put the children in the car and followed him. She felt her heart beating so hard in her chest, until she realized that Gabriel, her son, was dutifully kicking the back of her seat with regular kicks. Probably to ensure she wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel as he was passionate about road safety and small cars.
Meanwhile, her husband's car sped calmly towards the west, between the soft trees of this road which was not the right one.
She had let herself fall a little too far behind, so much so that she no longer saw her husband's car. But, in the clear, cloudless night, she recognized the broken left rear headlight and parked twenty meters after it.
In the back, the children slept, killed on the spot by their mother's gentle driving. It took Madame Solère several minutes before daring to get out of her car. Through the window of her husband's vehicle, just below the street lamp that descended from the sky like a divine light, she saw a piece of paper with an address written on it and she knew then that it was apartment five of the house. the building across the street that her husband had visited.
The huge building had only one lit window.
In the hall, she read Gary's name something on mailbox number five. She took the stairs because she would have been unable to stay still in the elevator shaft, even for thirty seconds.
In the hallway we could hear music. She didn't want to make too much noise. Her pumps hit hard against the parquet floor and resonated against the plasterboard walls still smelling of paint. She loved this smell which reminded her of new things, of things we do for the first time.
Her finger found the doorbell on its own without her having consciously done so and, soon, someone came to open it for her. It was the man from the supermarket, with a big forehead and greasy hair.
The room was small and square. A thousand shelves ran all the way around the room and were spread over several levels. On each of them were infinite boxes. At the center of it all, a round table on which newspapers were laid out flat and, with her hands clenched in black latex gloves, she recognized her husband. He was still with huge eyes, as if he had seen a corpse.
Madame Solère, surprised by her own audacity, entered and quietly walked around the room. Her heart rate began to slow down as she realized that her husband wasn't cheating on her. She also understood, from seeing the shoe polish, the brushes, the boxes, that he had developed a sort of enthusiasm for shoes and that he and this man, this Gary, had found themselves around this common passion, for shoes. maintain and make them shine in the evening after the office.
She felt a shiver of relief run through her body like when you step into a hot bath. She simply says:
- After all these years, I thought you were incapable of keeping secrets...
Susanne noticed with a certain pride that his voice did not tremble.
- ...and I must say... that I am impressed.
She came forward, her husband got up and she hugged him as best she could.
- Come on, she said, let's go home.
Mr. Solère waved his hand to his friend Gary, correctly replaced the sleeves of his previously rolled-up shirt and took his American wool blazer. Then he staggered off, stunned like a boxer after an attack.
III
Mr. and Mrs. Solère had gotten into the same car, temporarily abandoning one of those with which they had come. It was naturally the one in which the children were not.
He insisted on driving and, once again, Susanne did not recognize the road. He tells him :
- You'll see, Honey.
After five or ten minutes, he stopped the car in front of a somewhat shabby garage with the number B312. It didn't mean anything, it was just the number of this garage.
He inserted the key into the rusty lock and swung the door, which lodged just below the ceiling. The loud, long creak of the moving door grabbed Madame Solère down to the small of her back and she put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
The garage was a den, a museum, where he exhibited shoes like master paintings. There were all shapes and colors and Susanne thought it was an astonishing and beautiful sight.
- I come here every morning before work, to choose the pair of shoes I'm going to wear for the day, he said.
Everything here shone like gold and it smelled good of shoe polish and leather, wood, musk and dust, and you could see that Monsieur Solère spent time there.
She closed the garage door to find them alone inside. And the children were still asleep. There, Alexander spoke and his wife had the feeling that it was like the first time he had spoken. Her eyes lit up with a light she didn't know existed in them and her voice, quavering at times, made an admirable sinusoidal curve and her hands beat the air like an orchestra conductor.
- I hid this from you, because, at first simply... I think I was ashamed. I didn't think a man should worry about such trivial things as clothes or shoes. But it really interested me. And then, the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. There is the beauty of shoes, that's for sure, but there is also their technicality. Like watches. I am an engineer after all. It interests me by nature, how things are done. Two hundred manufacturing steps for a pair of shoes. Leather tanning. The seams. The stem. The welt. The wall. The shank! Perforations. It's endless.
His wife looked at him in amazement. She had never heard him speak so well, so confidently and so passionately about anything.
She learned that it came from childhood, from her grandfather who pampered her shoes. He remembered the cool evenings which required a fireplace, during which he scrubbed, polished, brushed with virtuoso gestures. And he, little, was in the corridor lurking in the shadows or hidden in a corner of the room pretending to sleep, wrapped like a mummy in a blanket as big as himself, with just his eyes sticking out to admire the esoteric maneuvers of his grandfather. He made giant gestures with the precision of a surgeon and it smelled good of shoe polish which made crumbs black like coal on the flat newspaper. Sometimes, without warning, he would light a box of shoe polish on fire and watch the flames attentively, as if he could read the future there. Then he blew sharply on it to put it out.
Monsieur Solère's favorite part was when his grandfather suddenly spit on the leather. And accelerated his movement which suddenly slid easily on the smooth surface to make it shine even more.
He could spend the night there, it didn't even matter. And his wife, Alexandre's grandmother, busy with everyday tasks, let him have his moment of calceophilic pleasure, which she called his “charming autistic disorder”.
Alexandre couldn't stop talking and he told his wife the truth about the time when, during their lovemaking, she had sent him to the emergency room with a sudden thrust.
While they were making love, Mr. Solère wondered why the leather of his shoes was not naturally waterproof even though human skin was. Was it a collagen thing? Was it because the skin was less alive?
He observed the pretty fold formed by the touching meeting of Susanne's thigh and hips. The leather was even, not too grainy, with minimal roughness, no insect bites and not too shiny or too smelly. It was a beautiful, high-end skin.
But, while Alexander was mechanically doing the traditional coital comings and goings, he asked himself: “how is it that human skin can perspire while remaining waterproof?” He meant that water could go out but never in. It was an amazing one-way system! And what's more, it wasn't like Gore-Tex, meaning the waterproof power of the skin didn't fade over time. We were still waterproof at a hundred years old, as long as we were alive.
It fascinated him. As Mr. Solère was the scientific type, he liked to check the facts. The situation was simple: a bottle of water was on the bedside table, his wife was in front of him on the bed and the whole expanse of her back was being offered to scientific progress!
He started, telling himself that if things failed, he could always summon a sudden desire to mix water with their sexual pleasures. She who always said that he never left his old recipes. She wasn't going to be disappointed. He poured.
The icy water slid superbly over Madame Solère's waterproof skin. Susanne was very waterproof!, he said to himself. But it also generated a violent animal reaction that the scientist had not anticipated and, while she gave him an absolutely masterful and deserved thrust, he was sent crashing into the mirror behind him, which exploded loudly and fell back into the air. sparkling, dangerous debris on the ground and his bare torso.
“Méçavapatédevnufou!” she shouted, and that’s quite normal.
Mr. Solère, in the garage, was still laughing at the mention of this memory. He paced back and forth and couldn't stop talking. And Madame Solère, in the only armchair in the room, couldn't believe this man she was discovering. Certainly, she felt a bit offended by this last statement, but she was also positively charmed by this vibrant passion that he had been able to keep secret. As for why he had kept it secret, he simply replied:
- I thought about it quite a bit. In fact, I think it's a way of reconnecting with my grandfather. Never had a special relationship with my father... who found me too... precious. So. And I also think that I wasn't too keen on collecting shoes... Because I had the impression that it was perhaps a bit too feminine a trait. I don't know. It's stupid.
Susanne looked at him. He who rarely answered a question with more than two or three words was now making hypotheses about his own psychology! At this thought, she jumped into his arms so quickly and so well that they crashed against a shelf before kissing wildly like teenagers.
To somehow seal this new stage in their relationship, Mr. Solère gave his wife his diary. So that she better understands the nature of her passion and so that they can, why not, discuss it. In this diary he mainly recorded his thoughts. And it was about shoes.
When he saw that she was putting her newspaper in her handbag, Monsieur Solère 's smile froze somewhat. Maybe, deep down, he shouldn't have. But he was stopped dead in his thoughts by the crunching of nails against the door. It was his son who wanted to come home.
IV
Extracts from the diary of Alexandre Solère.
December 12, 2015:
I know it's not his fault, but why does Jean-Marc persist in always talking to me about shoes? Leave me alone with that.
- And these shoes with my suit are in bad taste?
Today, he was wearing a suit too big for him, which looked like he had borrowed it from his father, a black suit, obviously, with some sort of brown elastic moccasins with a square toe... And he asked what I thought!
If I had had the courage at that moment, just to show him what I thought, I would have torn out my eyes with my bare hands and carried them in triumph to the sky, screaming: “WHY LORD FOR WHAT ?".
But afterwards, people will still say that I am excessive.
Instead, I coughed nicely and remained polite. I simply told him that if his suit was black, then maybe it was better to wear black shoes too. That it was wiser.
I don't even agree with that, basically. But hey, before playing a symphony you still have to review your scales.
Why do people always have to come and ask my opinion as soon as it directly or indirectly affects shoes?
Random thought #33:
No, but what kind of mug would put a skate on his sole? An iron at the end of course! But don't skate, it's common sense. The skin has to breathe. This is how it lasts as long as possible. That and not walking on a soggy sidewalk. And maintain them every three weeks at least. And also not to use them too much either. And then, one day, when you see the cork, you just have to change the sole. 150€ is the price to pay for quality work.
Random thought #86:
My wife had tickets for the Prix d'Amérique at the Vincennes racecourse. I wouldn't say that racing really fascinated me, but what magnificent beasts!
Note to self: Expand my cordovan collection.
Random thought #155:
When you think about it, pairs of shoes should be reimbursed by social security. No, it's because everyone's foot shapes are different and the health of their back depends on this shape and plantar support.
I'm not talking about repaying everything but part of the bill for my Edward Green bespoke, that would not be refused. Because with all this, I start hoping that my children don't go to higher education.
Random thought #12:
Are there sustainable Blake seams?
Random thought #71:
Patinas are to calcophilia what tuning is to automobile passion.
March 21, 2011:
Today I brought Gabriel into my garage to show him my collection. He doesn't speak yet, so I'm not afraid of anything.
While I was showing him my treasures, he vomited right on my shoes.
Luckily, I had made such a perfect mirror glaze that the smelly droppings didn't have time to penetrate the leather.
Random thought #56:
No, but I'm dreaming! My colleague Eric told me about a wooden heel on his shoes! A wooden heel! No, but if he wants to wear wooden heels, he should buy clogs!
Random thought #102:
Young people today only wear tennis shoes, it's deplorable. They do not know all the social benefits that a properly maintained pair of shoes can generate.
Ease won. That and consumerism. I will keep my pairs all my life and leave them to my son. As long as it's the same size.
Otherwise, he will bend his toes or put on insoles.
Susanne read a few more names she didn't know, written in the margin like magic formulas: “Yohei Fukuda”, “Nikolaus Tuczek”, “Masaru Okuyama”, “Poulsen & Skone”. Then closed the newspaper. Definitely.
She knew from then on that she did not need to know all of her husband's secrets because, in this diary, she discovered him sometimes excessive, sometimes violent and he was not the one she loved. For the sake of their marriage, it was better that his passion remained secret or, at least, that they talked about it as rarely as possible.
V
The package under the tree on which Monsieur Solère's first name was written scared him. In fact, it terrified him so much that he preferred not to open it.
His dog next to it, almost sitting on it, watched over the children who were struggling in an explosion of confetti. The hunt for gifts was on. Very distinctly, Monsieur Solère saw Gabriel attempt to violently bite Valérie on the wrist, when she had briefly placed her hand on his gift. And for an instant, Monsieur Solère had seen the flames of hell burning in his son's red eyes. “Wow,” he said to himself. We're going to have to watch out for this kid. Seriously." Susanne, fortunately, had seen nothing.
The dog stuck out his tongue and drops of drool landed like bombs on the Persian carpet. “He's lucky that I like this dog,” said Alexandre to himself.
He had taught him some pretty fantastic tricks: for example, if he shot him with his revolver hands, the dog would fall backwards, on his side as if he were dead. For Mr. Solère, it was truly a dog with extraordinary intelligence.
So, he said to himself that together, they might be able to make this package that was terrorizing him disappear.
He first tried to catch her gaze, half-closing his eyelids. “You’re going to look at me damn Border Collie. Ah that's it. He looks at me and tilts his head. Yes, you saw me. He is fixed, I have his full attention. How do I express this now? So... I have to make a meaningful gesture that is clear enough for my dog, but without my wife seeing me.”
He instinctively made an authoritative hand gesture that the Border Collie, surely imbued with the magic of Christmas, took as an invitation to come and lick his face. Which he did by jumping on her.
- This dog is crazy!, said Susanne. Darling, it’s your turn to open your gift.
She had a crazy smile when she handed him his gift. The weight, the size, Monsieur Solère was sure, it was a shoebox. From the supposed thickness of the cardboard in the box and the polish of the lid that he felt through the flashy paper, he even had an idea of the brand. And that was precisely what he feared.
Slowly he opened the box.
They were thin, slender Italian shoes that he hated at first glance. “Which man on Earth has pointy feet?” he thought angrily. "Person !" The irregular welt seams were not tacked. And the leather, finally, had ugly veins and suspicious folds which made Monsieur Solère say that this leather was hollow. But that wasn't all. At the bottom of the box there was a note written in Susanne's hand. He read it:
“Merry Christmas my love,
I hope you like them. I am happy that we have become closer recently but, reading your diary, I feel perfectly that your very lively and categorical passion could harm us. You're so bossy, so sure of yourself when you talk about shoes that I feel like I don't know you anymore.
I love you for who you have been all these years and I prefer to keep it that way.
Susan.”
And, while the Solères looked at each other with the eyes of love, Alexandre could not help but say to Susanne:
- Very good, darling... But promise me not to buy me any more shoes.
