The other day I bought a pair of black suede Manolo Blahnik flat mules on the RealReal.
They retail for $835. The ones I got were ~$400 and in such good condition, I don’t even think they were ever worn. At the time there was only one pair in my size so I snatched them up.
I work remotely which means that while I do make an effort to get dressed from the ankles up every day, shoes are 99.9% optional. However, I had some in-person work sessions coming up and was tired of the ballet flats I had been wearing over and over again.
The Manolos felt like the right next step. They were flat, easy, black and the kind of shoe that makes any outfit feel put together. No one would know or care that they were Manolos, but I would.
I wasn’t looking for that specific pair before I found them. This is an important detail I chose not to think about at the time. Instead I was doing some RealReal perusing and innocently came across them. I looked up the retail price, confirmed that $400 was essentially a steal and my heart started racing from the discount I felt I was getting (and probably from the timer counting down in my shopping cart).
I have lost things on the RealReal before. I’ve waited, decided I did in fact want the thing, gone back and was devastated to find it was sold. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.
When the Manolos arrived I was beyond excited. I opened the box, put them on and immediately knew they were too small. My heels were hanging off the back. I asked my husband, hoping he’d tell me my feet looked like delicate little croissants gently tucked into the pastry box of my new suede shoes. Instead he confirmed what I already knew: my feet were spilling out of the shoes like Pillsbury dough after you pop the can.
I was genuinely bummed. Bummed enough that I emailed the RealReal explaining that I loved them and wanted to keep them, but the size just wouldn’t work. They kindly waived my return shipping fee so I could return and buy them in the correct size.
Except…I didn’t.
There was another pair available in the right size, in a similar condition for roughly the same price. I went to buy them and then suddenly $400 felt like $1000. Same shoe, same-ish price, but the excitement of the deal was gone.
The work session I was planning to wear these for was cancelled and I had just come back from a trip where I felt like I had spent too much money. And now that I had actually seen the shoes on my feet, I knew something I didn’t know at the time of purchase. They were nice, but they weren’t mind-blowingly special. Without the work session they would become $400 shoes I was buying to sit in my closet until I could invent somewhere to wear them to. So I made the difficult decision to close the Chrome tab.
Since then, I’ve come back to the RealReal to check on them a few times. I’m not really sure why because I’m almost certain I don’t regret not getting them. More so because I now know that they seem to have a fairly steady supply of this particular shoe. If I find the right size at a low enough price, maybe I’ll buy them. They’re a good black shoe, but I also worry they’re the Gucci slide of 2015. Those are still sitting in my closet, untouched for years. Wait, should I just wear those?
I’m usually very susceptible to the regret that comes with not buying something when you had the chance. Resale makes this worse because scarcity is a real issue. There may be only one in your size and someone could buy it while you’re thinking about it.
I realized the first time I saw the Manolos, I wasn’t only deciding whether or not I wanted them, I was also deciding if I was willing to lose them. Those are very different things.
The return gave me another chance to decide. And then another pair appeared, and then another. Once I stopped believing that this was my only chance to own them, I was able to think about whether I actually wanted to.
In the meantime I bought a pair of jelly flip-flops for a fraction of the price and have worn them almost every day. This isn’t an argument for jelly shoes over Manolos. I still kind of want the Manolos, but the point is I don’t need them right now. There will be another pair.