I have undertaken teaching myself to walk in heels again.
I've written in the past about my love/hate relationship with girly shoes (though I am too busy and too lazy to go searching for the link). To put it succintly, they are a device of torture that should be illegal. No one should be made to suffer the pain of stuffing her feet into a too-narrow space and then balancing her weight on the ball and toes of said suffering feet. There's probably a Geneva Convention forbidding such practice.
But the reason such shoes would have to be illegalized, the reason they do not simply disappear from the marketplace from a kind of consumer Darwinism - like the buggy whip and the flintlock* - is that there is nothing quite so fetching as a well-turned ankle rising from a pair of darling pumps. And there is nothing that will turn a mediocre ankle into a well-turned one quite as well as that pair of darling pumps.
Heels are the finishing touch that turns an ordinary outfit into something special. They ooze professionalism with a suit, sexiness with a little black dress, dressiness even with jeans. People who say that flats can do the same is just fooling themselves.
Because shoes talk. Big, chunky boots with buckles and straps give off a completely different message from sneakers, no one can deny that. There's a whole language of shoes, some of it blatant, some of it subtle. And the message of flats, even reasonably dressy ones, is just a little more casual than that of heels. Whether those heels are conservative black pumps or kicky mules with a playful bow on the front, they just scream, "I tried a little harder."
I don't want it to be the case. Heels aren't comfy, or practical, and wearing them means keeping a regular stable of shoes at the office, since I am incapable of walking any distance in the damned things. But lemme tell ya: I walked in here wearing a suit and flats yesterday and no one said anything. I changed into the heels and several people commented on what a great outfit I was wearing.
With the heels, I was finally dressed.
I don't own many pairs of girly shoes at this point. I am still very picky about finding a decent, comfortable fit. But shoes that I couldn't wear for more than 20 minutes last winter are good for a whole day at the office now, thanks to my losing some of the extra poundage that threatened to drive my poor tootsies right into the floor. And whereas I really would wear them for a short time and then switch to flats, I am finding myself staying in them all day. It's one more form of training - stand straight, don't let your back arch too much, don't shuffle. I have no interest in going for more than a 2.5" heel - no 4" stilletoes for me. But I think I will be window shopping for a few more pair. Because it's good for the professional image.
And some of them are just so darling.
*Yes, I know that there are specialty stores from which you can buy both. There are specialty stores from which you can buy pretty much anything. Don't be pedantic.
I've written in the past about my love/hate relationship with girly shoes (though I am too busy and too lazy to go searching for the link). To put it succintly, they are a device of torture that should be illegal. No one should be made to suffer the pain of stuffing her feet into a too-narrow space and then balancing her weight on the ball and toes of said suffering feet. There's probably a Geneva Convention forbidding such practice.
But the reason such shoes would have to be illegalized, the reason they do not simply disappear from the marketplace from a kind of consumer Darwinism - like the buggy whip and the flintlock* - is that there is nothing quite so fetching as a well-turned ankle rising from a pair of darling pumps. And there is nothing that will turn a mediocre ankle into a well-turned one quite as well as that pair of darling pumps.
Heels are the finishing touch that turns an ordinary outfit into something special. They ooze professionalism with a suit, sexiness with a little black dress, dressiness even with jeans. People who say that flats can do the same is just fooling themselves.
Because shoes talk. Big, chunky boots with buckles and straps give off a completely different message from sneakers, no one can deny that. There's a whole language of shoes, some of it blatant, some of it subtle. And the message of flats, even reasonably dressy ones, is just a little more casual than that of heels. Whether those heels are conservative black pumps or kicky mules with a playful bow on the front, they just scream, "I tried a little harder."
I don't want it to be the case. Heels aren't comfy, or practical, and wearing them means keeping a regular stable of shoes at the office, since I am incapable of walking any distance in the damned things. But lemme tell ya: I walked in here wearing a suit and flats yesterday and no one said anything. I changed into the heels and several people commented on what a great outfit I was wearing.
With the heels, I was finally dressed.
I don't own many pairs of girly shoes at this point. I am still very picky about finding a decent, comfortable fit. But shoes that I couldn't wear for more than 20 minutes last winter are good for a whole day at the office now, thanks to my losing some of the extra poundage that threatened to drive my poor tootsies right into the floor. And whereas I really would wear them for a short time and then switch to flats, I am finding myself staying in them all day. It's one more form of training - stand straight, don't let your back arch too much, don't shuffle. I have no interest in going for more than a 2.5" heel - no 4" stilletoes for me. But I think I will be window shopping for a few more pair. Because it's good for the professional image.
And some of them are just so darling.
*Yes, I know that there are specialty stores from which you can buy both. There are specialty stores from which you can buy pretty much anything. Don't be pedantic.