Barmy ‘Shoe-Lady’ Breaks Her Own World Record Obsession

A relationship break-up might result in a drastic hair-cut, that we almost always regret, a change of lifestyle habits or, perhaps, a new pair of shoes to treat ourselves.

But Darlene Flynn from California, otherwise known as ‘Shoe Lady’, took it to the extreme. And the nickname is fairly self-explanatory.

Following her divorce, Darlene decided to pursue her love-affair with shoes. The Californian has spent the past 11 years collecting a total of 16,400 shoe-related trinkets.

To put this in perspective, this means she gathered approximately 4 trinkets a day.

Flynn has collected a massive assortment of shoe-shaped furniture, shoe-themed art, clothing, teapots, soap, phones, porcelain and thousands of miniature shoe figurines. There is even a shoe-shaped toilet brush holder.

Her barmy world record collection of 7,765 shoe-related items in her home catapulted her into the spotlight first in 2006, and she has since broken this record.

After her achievement, if we can call it that, in 2006, Flynn decided to step things up a notch and more than doubled her collection to 16,400 pieces.

The collection is so vast it even takes her two full weeks to remove each piece from its glass cabinet to put them out on display. Note to any photographers, give this lady some notice before you pop in for a few world record snaps.

Flynn’s collection has costed her around half a million US dollars in the process.

We don’t want to be stamping on her parade, but surely this money could have been put to a better use?

If it is a love of foot finery the lady has, she could have splashed out on 151 pairs of French shoemaker Christian Louboutin’s most expensive ‘Fifi Strass’ pumps for the same sum. These shoes cost £2,095 a pair and are embellished with dazzling crystals. They are set neatly in chic red shoeboxes, stuff a lot of women can only dream of, and, eh-hem, these shoes can actually be worn.