She had ironed her shirt, painted her nails, and done the liner with the long-wearing lipstick. Madoana Style was nearly ready for her night out.
She deserved it; Style had been to all of her classes, and by the middle of the week, she just felt stressed out.
Her girlfriends were coming to pick her up in less than five minutes, and she was still missing one of the most vital components for her evening. She started frantically searching her house for, what some would say, was the rest of her.
“Oh my God! Has anyone seen my black shoes?” Style said.
No one answered. Style began to panic. She wouldn’t even want to go out if she couldn’t find her favorite shiny, black Steve Maddens.
Those shoes were her favorite. She had owned them before they became popular. Now, everyone has them.
Her roommate told her to just wear something else. But that girl had no taste.
The last time she had spent a night on the town, she could have gotten dates with any guy she wanted, if it weren’t for an obsession with comfortable, worn down Reeboks.
That’s why Style’s friends no longer considered her roommate a part of the group.
Style would not show up anywhere without her sleek, sassy, shiny loafers that have bulkier heels. Almost any department store carries them for about $60 a pair.
They can be worn with almost anything from jeans and chinos to trouserpants. They are a staple to any bar, dance clubs, or party uniform.
“When I slip into the Maddens, it’s all about groovin’,” said Geneva B. Grindin, a student that frequents the local bars several times each week.
Style isn’t alone. She, along with a myriad of other young women across campus, puts these shoes on a pedestal inside the closet.
Sales associate Sylvia Strutster, who works in Dayton’s shoe department at Rosedale Mall, said the demand for both the black and the brown Steve Madden Loafers is intense.
“I think it must be the thicker, clunkier heals,” Struttser said.
Ralph Prada, a fashion psychologist at the University, calls the shoes sensual.
“I think there really is a psychology involved with these shoes. The girls have better posture; there is the extension of legs, stronger-looking calf muscles. And the confidence level increases 90 percent when the shoes naturally stick out the buttocks and breast.”
Grindin says she always feels more attractive to the boys when she is wearing her shoes.
“Sometimes I feel, like, totally gruesome,” Grindin said. “But I think the shoes change me. It’s like they are screaming, Take me home tonight.'”
It is not necessarily just the ladies that appreciate these shoes.
Richard Harden, a bouncer at a local bar, said he knows a Madden girl when he sees one.
“I can bench press 250 pounds, but I can barely resist the sex radiating from shoes on those girls,” Harden said. “It’s like Madden madness.”