How I named this shoe after my amazing grandmother ❤️
The magic of stilettos
When I was just 15, my grandmother gave me my first pair of high heels. They were a pair of red sandals with straps, peep toe, and slingback. And when I say red, I mean fiery red. A pair that stood out.
As I recall, my parents thought I was a bit too young to be wearing heels, but these red shoes were magical. I wore them in a musical as part of the role and the performance went really well. Whether it was thanks to the shoes or the entire crew, I obviously can’t say, but I always felt these firecracker heels had some part in the success.
My graceful grandmother
Fast forward to 2016. I knew I was attending a beautiful winter wedding in January of 2017, and I needed a pair of shoes that would help me get through the seance plus party without killing my feet. I think that you either wear heels or you wear flats - changing during the night isn’t an option for me. I don’t know why, it’s just a weird principle of mine.
Roccamore had started bombarding their audience with smart marketing campaigns in order to boost sales. And oh my, did it work! As someone who works in and understands communication and marketing myself, I always know that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. But roccamore kept their promise of high heels as comfy as sneakers, and so I bought my first pair - Lovely Lili 1st generation.
A black shoe with chunky heel and straps to ensure a snug fit. I wore them to the wedding, both the ceremony at mid-day, dinner at night and many, many hours of dancing and partying later on. I think I counted two blisters after that, but that might just have been from someone stepping on my toes during the dancing sessions. All in all, the shoes were perfect.
My grandmother, the one who had gifted me the magical red shoes more than a decade before, was also present at the wedding. She is the most stylish lady I know, and she believes heels is a powerful statement. So when roccamore a few months later asked their followers to name a new red shoe after an inspiring lady, I knew I had to put up her name: Grethe.
Grethe wasn’t exactly a perfectly good name for a pair of roccamores, because they usually choose English-sounding names to make it easier to pronounce internationally (smart move too, by the way). So Grethe became Grace.
The birth of “Grace”
My one true inspiration is and will always be my grandmother. Grethe classes up a room, but always knows her purpose - she is the epitome of the word “grace”.
She has been deeply invested in many leadership and innovation causes both in Denmark and beyond its borders and she was a female headmaster in an upper secondary business school in a time where not many women held such positions or stood by their worth in society.
She’s done humanitarian aid for decades, fought the disease polio worldwide through international aid programmes, and she’s traveled the world to hold conferences and leadership ability courses. I won’t reveal her exact age, but she’s over 80 - at least that’s what it says in her birth certificate.
Physically, though, she still looks 60 and acts 50. Through personal suffering and grief, she’s still the rock of her family, giving kind support and the greatest advice I’ve ever known. Grace like that is the true form of love and female empowering.
She embodies all the strong and loving grandmothers out there who paved the way for me, for us, and for our way of thinking. My argumentation was solid. The red roccamore shoes were aptly named Grace. And when I bought a pair, I promised myself I would make them just as magical as that first time I walked in heels onstage and experienced success and joy.
So I wore my pair of Grace on my wedding day in 2019. And I will forever remember that our graceful role models can make something as ordinary as shoes into something unforgettable and magical.
All the best, Simone Engbo, shoelover