Oh Look, Christmas Came Early

Above is a gif of real shoes. Real, live shoes you can buy. Real, live shoes that come via Katy Perry, cost $169, and should be the perfect footwear statement if mama meets Jesus tonight. Just take a second to let that sink in.

Perry hawked these chukkas (official name: Novelty Garland Ankle Boots), as well as other styles from her shoe line like scented jelly thong sandals, circus-inspired looks, and open-toed shoes with octagon heels, Wednesday night on QVC. It was an hour of the sort of shameless tackiness that Perry has gleefully embraced throughout her career on what Perry described as “a very iconic channel.” Perry repeatedly said that appearing on QVC was her “lifelong dream.” I can relate, but only vaguely because the Novelty Garland Ankle Boots feel like a spontaneous hallucination, like something that flashes before your eyes during a salvia trip or just before you die.

It’s always hard to determine just how much input a celeb has into the brand she has attached her name to. I assume, for example, that Britney Spears’s way of developing a new fragrance involves showing up at a factory and getting sprayed with a new scent on the wrist, to which she responds with a salute and an “‘Ello guvnah!,” and bam! A new fragrance is born.

In this case, though, I totally believe that Katy Perry played a major role in bringing the Christmas shoes to life.

I always forget the sort of heightened reality that QVC provides until I tune in. It’s always so manic and exaggerated and it feels like at any moment the entire set could collapse or otherwise complete chaos could erupt.

Nothing so drastic happened, but it was reliably ridiculous. Perry really wanted to impress upon viewers how much selling shoes means to her. “I’m a singer-songwriter, I’m a storyteller and that’s what I try and do with my shoes is I kind of try and put little mini stories with each step,” she said. When the host called what Perry had just said a “pun” (???), Perry explained that she is a wordsmith. Hm, okay.

There was also a moment where Perry highlighted the, uh, pro-social aspect to her merchandising (??????): “Y’know, you just gotta do your part, and for me I just wanna bring joy and hope and light to the world and if I can do it through my songs, number one that’s most important, but now I’m doing it through my shoes, so.” Having a brand from which you stand to profit handsomely is really not all that different from philanthropy, it turns out.