It took nine years, one month, and twenty-four days. But I finally got them ~ the Spanish flamenco shoes I’ve always wanted.

Way back in the day when my first-born was a toddling one-year old and my son was merely a glimmer in our eyes, we hosted an English language student from Madrid. She was a lovely soul who had studied economics and had come to the States to brush up her English. It turns out our Spanish equalled her English ~ da nada. We gesticulated and smiled and admired each other in that friendly nice-to-meet you way most international travellers do. It was then that I started a love affair with Spanish shoes because the girl had a pair I secretly coveted from Day One. They were simple ~black with a delicate strap that said “I am woman. Watch me tap.” They clicked and clacked eloquently across the hardwood floors of our Somerville home, a dancer’s lunge from Boston.  Those shoes, in all their brightness, even made me forget how little the girl and I could actually communicate.

For years I searched high, then low, for a similar pair of those black beauties. Our lovely Spanish student went home after completing her language course, sending us a condolence card of thanks because she must have thought the flower on the front was pretty. Patiently, nay, reverently, I looked for a pair of clackers just like she had in every corner of the city. To no avail.

That is, until I recently found myself in Barcelona on a power of slow trip like no other. My sister and I snatched our passports (and our husbands) for a long weekend on the Mediterranean Coast. Passing by a few boutique stores in search of a new handbag, I spotted the long-awaited footwear that seemed to call out to me like a siren’s song.

Within minutes I was the proud new owner of a pair of Flamenco heels that literally announced my arrival along the cobblestone streets. I smartly clacked my way back to the hotel with a renewed sense of purpose.

It may have taken nearly a decade, but embracing the slow fulfillment of a dream such as this was worthwhile and makes every new step I take all the sweeter for it.

Comme des Garcons is a fashion brand, refusing to be one. The PradaGuccis use to build themselves monuments with fashion-capital’s flagship-stores - Comme des Garcons instead opens Guerilla Stores at alternative locations for just a year or so. And re-opens them somewhere else, always in hidden, unexpected  areas and locations such as former warehouses, etc. 

1972 Rei Kawakubo founds the brand Comme des Garcons (”like boys”) in Tokio, today she still is the head of design. Comme des Garconsis clothing which does not care about following or creating trends. Since 1984 the women’s collection is added by men’s fashion.

Rei Kawakubo is the first designer creating specific store architecture for her fashion (herself). After the luxury brands have done the same she developed: There’s a “fixed” store in Paris, one in New York, a few in Japan and the Dover Street Market in London, where Comme des Garcons is presented with other brands in kind-of-a-market environment.

The Guerilla Stores match Rei Kawakubo’s nature against the establishment. Often her fashion is angry, shapeless, provoking, anti-trendy black or bright, sometimes with sculptural elements. The Guerilla Stores are opened for just a year at each location. And the fans come.