Though Tracee Ellis Ross is the daughter of a massive celebrity (and has become a celebrity on her own,) the actress wasn’t just given everything she wanted. In a new interview Ross discussed her relationship with fashion, explaining that her mother, Diana Ross, made her save up her own money to make the bigger purchases. The tactic gave Ross, who says she was a Christian Louboutin So Kate girl before Zendaya, an appreciation of pieces as well as their value.
Amongst those pieces are what Ross calls her first major high fashion purchase. In an interview for the new “The Good Buy” series from Harper’s Bazaar the performer revealed that the purchase came while she was filming the show “Girlfriends,” widely considered her breakout role. She played Joan Carol Clayton in that project, using much of her own wardrobe on the show to compensate for the network’s low costume budget. But with the gig she allowed herself one major splurge per renewal. For the season 3 renewal, which aired in 2002, she decided to buy the Vivienne Westwood Pirate boots.
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“At the time it was something like $780 — it was so much money, it was insane,” Ross said on the podcast. “A boot like that, today, would be about $4,000. So I’m not saying that $780 is not a lot of money: it is a lot of money. But that same boot today is probably about $4,000.”
The Vivienne Westwood Pirate boot is a slouchy boot with multiple straps traversing it. Westwood introduced it in her first-ever catwalk collection for the fall 1981 season. The show itself was named “Pirates” and was designed by Westwood alongside then boyfriend Malcolm McLaren. Since then the shoe has gone on to be a staple of the label, going in and out of trends. Ross said that Kate Moss inspired her to buy them.
“Kate bought a pair of those boots and then everybody wanted them,” Vivienne Westwood said in a video interview once. “She loves fashion, she understands clothes. She knows how to work clothes. I think Kate is the most stylish person that treads the planet.”
Moss wore the shoes starting in the late 1990s and through the 2000s. She became a poster child for them, often seen in the boots. But others including Sienna Miller, Miley Cyrus and Gwen Stefani. When Ross got hers in the early 2000s, the shoes were still being done by custom design.
“They had to measure your foot and draw an outline of your foot in the store,” she said in the interview. “And then I had to wait for them.” She still owns the boot. Recently, Anne Hathaway wore the Vivienne Westwood Pirate boot. She strapped them on for Halloween.
