I want those shoes

While all the girlfriends are flocking to watch Sex and the City and drooling over the eight-inch heel shoes being sported (sashayed, to be precise) by Carrie and Co., I am unashamedly not sharing their enthusiasm. I have finally found the shoes which define me. And they are the exact opposite of the Blahniks, the Louboutins and the Jimmy Choos.

I have fallen head over heels in love with a Spanish brand of shoes called Campers. Paola Jacobbi in her book about shoes assures us that these are loved by the 'alternative, anti-globalisation youth the world over'.

They are the nearest you can get to the ideals of the fashion-conscious nature lover: a marriage of ethics and aesthetics.

We don't have an outlet here yet, just in case you're thinking I'm getting a commission or something.

But I am so relieved - finally I can look at a lovely pair of original flat shoes, and go: 'Me! That's me! I want it now!'

I have never worn anything higher than kitten heels. You could say because of peer pressure. At one metre 75cm I always towered over my typical-Maltese-average-sized girlfriends. Wearing heels would have meant missing out on gossip whispers.

So now that the tittle-tattle days are over and I am fit to stand tall, I find that I have 'physical' issues, namely of the-losing-balance-and-falling-off-the-heel nature.

Wearing heels is like ballet - it's too late to get into it in your third decade. Unfortunately in Malta, where everyone wants to look taller, all the lovely shoes come in heels and buying flats with flair and character is impossible.

As we all know, shoes are about self-definition. More so than clothes - you're rarely too fat or too thin for a really fabulous pair. Shoes, therefore, are a form of therapy. They talk: "I am playful", "I can run fast", "I'm original", "I am practical but not boring"- whatever.

Or they can whisper to you in private: "you may be wearing flats but my goodness, aren't you sexy!"

Shoes and, well, fashion on the whole, are not just about self-esteem, they're also about the face you choose to present to the world, the ambition, imagination and desire.

I don't think the idea of fashion as therapy has exactly caught on in this island. Fashion is more of a chore, a tiring task of keeping up, of buying and wearing. Most do not embrace it individually, but just follow the herd.

We need to take time to think about who we are and what we are and then let our sense of fashion reflect that.

Fashion stylist Carina Camilleri, writing in The Times' Weekender on the people attending the recent Malta Fashion Awards, and a new Roman Empire, made me chortle over breakfast when she wrote: 'But my one and only question was, why do so many women look like men dressed as women?' It's a big do? Ah! Let's slap on the full cake-like make up with a very pronounced lip liner, a coiffeur à la Ipokriti and a shiny shimmery dress which gets the approval of the mother-in-law in terms of 'elegance' and the approval of the macho boyfriend in terms of cleavage.

Accessories? Why just a bangle when you could also have the watch, the earrings and the whole hullabaloo.

'They really just don't get the less is more idea', Camilleri rightly complained. It's like having a pizza with fries and spaghetti for toppings.

It's ironic that we do take the trouble to dress up and even go to great lengths to make an effort but there is not much personal thought in the process and the result consequently reflects what we think we ought to be wearing.

The frustration of this incurable lack of distinctive aesthetic style just makes me hanker for a spot of shoe-shopping therapy. Quirky, irreverent Camper shoes, here I come.