I’m just back from a stroll to the supermarket, a mile or so each way, and with the supermarket being in quite a busy crossroads, and at quite a busy time - lunch hour. I wore my grey suede OTK boots, medium heels. Usually I don’t bother noticing if anyone is noticing because I don’t care, but today as an experiment I decided to look at where people hold their eyes when they are out and about. In almost every case it is straight ahead into the vague middle distance, or else they are looking for something, or speaking to someone. In any case their observation threshold doesn’t appear to be lower than the waist.
There are those of course with downcast eyes, either gloomy or lost in thought or because they are very introspective. And again, these people don’t seem to observe much either.
One woman noticed my boots - she had been gazing at a spot on the footpath and I happened to walk through it. She glanced up at me, then back at the boots and then returned to her own private bubble.
Now I was wearing, as I said, mid-grey suede OTK boots paired with fairly light coloured, but not pale, blue jeans. And worn outside the jeans. They worked together in a complementary way. If I had been wearing something more eye-catching - patent thigh-highs - maybe more people might have noticed. The point is that while we may be conscious that we are wearing something outside the norm, most of the rest of the world just doesn’t. Especially if you don’t make a show of it. I mention this because of some posts I saw lately where people were wearing really quite presentable boots and were nervous about the reactions. Don’t be. It’s fine.