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Impressive that you tracked all the walking! They held up well.

@CrushedVamp yeah it's really funny, but cooking simply is the task I do most at home while being on my feet. The story about your wife is actually a great idea! I'll think of that when I have to make dough or something like that.

Coming in at No. 4 are my BCBGirls Bonny beaded wooden mules (pair No. 2). I often say that these are my favorite pair of shoes ever. I don't know in my heart of hearts if that's really true, but at least in a certain category, it is true. The downside to loving these shoes is that they're not super durable. I've owned six pairs of this exact model and color (I don't know if it came in any other color), and so far I've been through four, with two in reserve. What happens is that after about 100 miles or so, the shanks break. I managed to coax 115.6 miles (186 km) out of pair No. 2 before that happened. Ironically, I was feeling energetic one evening back in 2022, and I decided to take the Bonnys out for a 5 mile spin, which I'd never done before. The route I chose was largely on a bicycle path, so the plan was to walk 2.5 miles linearly, then simply about face, and come back home. Unfortunately, about 1.5 miles into the journey, something began to feel quite mushy and strange. Yes, the right shank had snapped in half, allowing the heel to flex radically. I had to limp home very slowly, and that was the end of Bonny No. 2. I posted about it if you want to scroll back in my "Ruminations" thread far enough. I love wooden heeled mules, and I have quite a number in my collection. Why this should be my favorite, I don't know. They aren't super tall, effective steepness being less than 4 inches (10 cm), and they tend to get worn looking fairly rapidly if you wear them like I do, but they've always had a appeal for me.

Haha, I do the same thing! In my case, it's for kneading bread dough. Better in every way when you can get your body weight into it. Your wife's idea is not so strange, it's practical.

Kind of a funny story about high heels and cooking, though I admit compared to other people's stories on here, this is quite mild. But in making a new kitchen for my wife, she wanted a spot that was a bit lower than the rest of the counters so that in having a marble top, she could toss flour on it and have a place where she could roll out pie crusts and cookies. I was fine with that except there was no good place to put one, and even if I did, it would be a place dedicated to just that. It did not make sense in such a small kitchen. But what she did instead was, keep a pair of her high heeled shoes in the cabinet underneath. When she needed to roll dough, she would slip them on and really be taller that way she could press down from above more and make rolling out dough easier for her. She got a lot of grief for this, but it really worked well for her and did not tie up her kitchen by having a countertop lower in one spot for something she only did a few times a month. The high heels worked perfect for rolling out dough.

Yes boot cut jeans would be a better idea with hiking boots, but with knee boots and certainly with OTK boots I much prefer skinny jeans. Trying to finagle jeans over the shafts of OTK boots doesn’t appeal. Too much hassle,

When I started to wear knee high, I would hide them under my jeans. Now it skinny jeans and the knee highs on the outside. When you wear with confidence, embarrassment is not an option. And when you wear those boots with leather pants, your confidence is off the chart.

I quite agree! Although I like the look of skinny jeans, I would not expect to pair them with very chunky footwear (not that I normally wear such) nor any with long pointed toes (which I do like to wear). One could easily look somewhat cartoonish with seemingly big/heavy feet (whatever their actual size) sticking out from spindly legs. Boot-cut jeans are (as one would expect) usually a good companion to high-heeled boots, with the advantage of concealing at least part of the heel height if its detection in public wearing would be an embarassment, as many of us have to admit is a concern.

You have a semi-valid point. We do wear something on our feet but also wear something on our legs too. Just as flats are the go-to now, in legwear it tends to be leggings. I know all it took was a few episodes of Sex and the City and high heels were back in fashion, but that was 20 years ago. Hosiery had its heyday in the 1980's; 40 years ago, and never bounced back. I am not saying I like it, I am just not convinced it is a given. I have a wife. I have five daughters, and I can tell you they are not following their mother in heel choice. They wear heels to the prom and swear they never will wear them again.

But we all wear something on our feet. Hosiery is an option but footwear is not. Boots, shoes, sandals, whatever, we all wear ‘em. Heels are a design element in that. One of those elements that fashions alter regularly. The buying public gets tired or bored, or designers decide they need to fire the market with something new, and there are changes. And so it goes. Heels will be back

Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, the apple did not fall far from the tree. I spent a lot of years in a foster home growing up because of my mother. But it was the best thing that happened to me. Everybody's mother loves them, but since mine did not, it set the bar really low. So when people say, "I don't like you Crushed Vamp", I just nod and say, "My own mother didn't either. So what's your point?" " 🙂 It doesn't get any worse than your own mother not loving you, so now; nothing bothers me!

Part of me says you are indeed right, and yet part of me says maybe not so much. The reason I say that is in looking at hosiery. Every few years you hear fashion guru's say, "oh, pantyhose and stockings are making a comeback this year", and yet every year that fails to happen. Do a search for it for 2025 and you will see it was "going to be a fashionable trend in 2025" and yest.... crickets. Yes, heels and hosiery are tied in together, but also not so much. Hosiery may be awkward to wear, but not exactly painful like high heels, and it is extremely inexpensive to buy, and a ton of fashionable ways to wear it. So you would think if anything fashion-wise that would make a comeback, with so much going for it, hosiery would... but nope, not really so far.

It's not a circle, it's a spiral.

I don’t think it will. Fashion has always been cyclical and I can’t see that changing. Heels, like skirt lengths, go up and down. The whole business model of fashion is one of near constant change although that change is more typically evolutionary rather than fast and sweeping. At the moment heels are in a lull, but the market and the people who move it will eventually become restless and start shaking things up.

That would be a vicious circle. I hope it won't come that far.

Nope! Its like saying you want a sensible pair of stilettos

The rational way would be to start with 10 cm, but we're not all that rational when it comes to heels, are we? 😀

An explanation of my "giant" shoes, and why I called them that. Those are really my mom's words, and for whatever reason she decided to comment on the height of my heels this week, and not other weeks. I have several pairs of 14 cm heels with 2.5 cm platforms. In fact, looking back at the last few months, I have worn shoes that are equally as tall as the most recent pair on at least two occasions. I think the reason why these appear to be super tall compared the other 14 cm in my collection, is because the color of the heel is darker than the color of the rest of the shoe. This is not true of my other vertiginous examples.

And that is the real shame because it becomes so circular. People not used to wearing heels; lets say at a wedding venue or something, wear them. Their feet hurt because they are super cheap in quality, so they swear off wearing high heels. Then because they do, there are few future sales, and what few sales there are will based on price. No one is going to buy really expensive, high-quality heels for a one-time-only event, so soon it is just accepted that wearing high heels is painful. Around and around it goes causing less and less people to wear high heels.

Thanks! Like you, I love the astonishing variety one can find in heels - even just within the category of boots! Colours, shapes, styles and heights. I've been looking at pumps, even thinking of being daring and picking out a pair in some pastel shade. Also trying to make up my mind - do I go for 10cm or do like what you did with your Hot Chicks and buy 12cm for the sheer elegance and worry about how the hell I walk in them later?

Hopefully that won't happen! I think there will always be a demand for stilettos - the worry is only the real cheap and nasty or the really expensive will continue to make them, with very slim pickings in that mid-range price and quality bracket

The same here in Germany. Close to citys like Munich I see them a bit more, but only chunky lower heels. Especially now in autumn/winter they become more. Stilettos are very rare. I'm happy that they are still sold, not that if it goes on that way they'll even stop selling them because there's no market 😅

I can recommend to try out these styles, that's what I love so much about heels - the variety! I think it's best if you start with pumps as they're generally easier than sandals. In difficulty I'd say they're close to boots, the only downside is the missing ankle support. The biggest difference is in comfort. Pumps must have a very tight fit, which isn't necessary to the same degree in boots. But don't worry, pumps can still be comfortable once they're worn in. Many of my everyday shoes are pumps, so no big deal 🙂

That was actually my first thought - that they were part of a clown costume

Somewhere out there, there must be a clown missing their shoes.