Mary Blakemore remembers her first pair of real dress shoes as if it was yesterday ? she was 13 and they were red suede with patent leather heels and toes.
A few years later when she moved from Britain to New Zealand she managed to cram 30 pairs into her suitcase,
and could have brought even more if she'd been able to fit them in.
These days the part time shoe saleswoman has restrained herself to 25 pairs.
Outrageous? Apparently not.
Though it may seem obsessive to some, 25 pairs of shoes is standard, according to a British insurance company that investigated women's shoe-purchasing patterns, working out the average British woman spends NZ $81,729 on shoes during her lifetime.
That's a $120 pair of shoes a month until you're 80, so get spending ladies.
But even Mrs Blakemore's shoe shopping is a lot more conservative than her British counterparts, buying only one or two new pairs a season.
"It's only in the last five to six years that I've started to get a nice collection again as well," she said.
"Having a family and with kids everywhere shoes were the last thing on my mind."
Mrs Blakemore has certainly made up for lost time though and now has five different pairs of boots, half a dozen pairs of evening shoes a pair of pink shoes she wears when she's happy and even a couple of pairs of gumboots.
And let's not forget the odd pair still lying about that she wouldn't be seen dead in past the front gate.
"But that's quite low compared to some of my customers," she protested.
"Some women I know may buy eight pairs a year or walk out of a sale with four or five pairs at once."
And, she insists, she does have limits, rarely spending over $200 for a pair of shoes and resisting any impulse buys.
Besides shoes are an integral part of any outfit, so why limit yourself to just a few pairs when you wouldn't do the same with clothes? About $1000 a year doesn't sound as excessive as $80,000 when you break the figures down.
But even so there are some shoes that money will never buy again and for everyone there will be at least one pair that no other has been able to measure up to.
Mrs Blakemore recalls hers instantly.
"A pair of patent leather high heels I found in Paris, they had a gold stripe at the tip of the shoe and the heel.
"Even though they were half a size too small, I had to have them.
"They used to kill me, but they were beautiful."
Mary Blakemore remembers her first pair of real dress shoes as if it was yesterday ? she was 13 and they were red suede with patent leather heels and toes.
A few years later when she moved from Britain to New Zealand she managed to cram 30 pairs into her suitcase,
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