🎨Why Women Collect More Shoes Than They Could Ever Wear

By Marie. January 16, 2026

(and what Liliw reminded me about the objects we keep)

I’ve always believed that shoes are tiny autobiographies. Long before retirement softened my days, I collected them with a kind of delighted abandon — stilettos in impossible heights, sandals in colors that made no practical sense, leather pairs that felt like small luxuries earned. I never thought of it as a collection; it was simply joy, multiplied.

But life shifts. Seasons change. And somewhere between work, advocacy, and the gentle settling into my ancestral home in Sta. Cruz, that part of me grew quiet. The shoes stayed, tucked in corners and cabinets, like old friends waiting for a story to be retold.

Then came that short detour to Liliw

We had just finished our first Board meeting of Lift PH Up Organization, Inc. when we stopped for lunch in town. Nothing dramatic — just a meal, a pause, a moment. But stepping out of the car and seeing that familiar stretch of shoe stores stirred something I hadn’t felt in years. Rows of sandals, slippers, and leather goods lined the street like a parade of possibilities. I didn’t even get to browse, yet the sight alone tugged at a memory I had forgotten I carried.

It reminded me why women collect more shoes than they could ever wear:

And in that way, they are not so different from the objects inside my ancestral home.

The Capiz windows, the old wooden floors, the heirloom plates tucked in a cabinet — none of them are used every day. Yet they hold stories, identities, and echoes of the people who walked these rooms long before me. They remind me that a home is not just a structure; it is a keeper of lives, choices, and small obsessions that once mattered deeply.

Maybe that’s why the sight of Liliw’s shoe stores felt like coming home to an old part of myself.

Maybe that’s why the moment stayed with me, incomplete as it was.

Because shoes — like ancestral houses — are not about utility alone.

They are about belonging, becoming, and the quiet ways we honor who we have been.

I promised myself I would return to Liliw. Not as a hurried visitor, but as someone ready to wander, listen, and let the town’s craftsmanship speak. And perhaps, when I do, I’ll bring home a pair — not because I need it, but because some loves deserve to be remembered.

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