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In my usual walk routine, I have short days and long days. Yesterday was a short day, meaning my walk was but a single mile (1.6 km). I chose to wear "real" high heels, just to up my game a little bit. Not all the way up to 12 cm, but close. Maybe 10.5 or 11, once you discount a little bit for my size 40. There is a big difference between that and my typical 8 to 10 cm walking shoes. If I ever get to the point where the high ones feel completely natural to walk in, that will be something. They weren't bad at all, I just never felt super at ease with them. The entire mile felt like, "Yes, you are wearing high heels."

Very well. I did not get a photo taken of my church Outfit Of The Week, but I did manage to fall asleep in the afternoon, so that I was forced to go out to dinner, being as I woke up too late to begin cooking supper. It was nice enough weather to eat outside, and I was forced to look at our reflection in the storefront windows the whole time. It's all I got. Oh, by the way, somebody I know walked past and said, "Beautiful shoes, as always!" I didn't get turned around in time to see who it was. That sort of comment drives my wife crazy, though she keeps it well hid these days.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/erin-ton-colorado-fourteeners-high-heels I’m particularly impressed she is in sandals. Mink has created custom heels for her and I guess they hold up to the job!

I’m off to lead another tour, my 12cm stiletto boots packed in my suitcase for after hours practice. I’ve been very slack the past few days, sticking to my 8cm chunky heeled ankle boots. I’ll see how much I’ve regressed when I try them on in my hotel this evening.

Back to the question of what does it really accomplish. I personally get it, but I also can see your point of view. I mean, I'm kind of guilty of the same thing on a much smaller level. Why do I keep track of how many miles I walk in heels? What does THAT really accomplish? My answer to that is that it's just fun for me, and if nobody else gets it, that's fine. Nobody except for you guys even knows about my record keeping, so I definitely don't do it for the fame! On the other hand, I wouldn't want to work my job in heels, even though it would be a bit of an accomplishment. I'm not sure what the qualitative difference is, but there is one to me personally.

I smell an advertising campaign. Glad to see p1ng74 posting again.

I remember seeing this story a while back. It’s certainly an impressive feat - as indeed climbing all the 14,000 foot peaks would be in any sort of footwear. But I don’t see what is being accomplished here in any broader sense. I don’t see how it’s altering or challenging stereotypes or doing much of anything besides getting her some odd-spot publicity. I like wearing heels, but I just don’t see the desirability of climbing mountains in them. it would be like me deciding to perform the Swan Lake Ballet in my Scarpa Mountaineering boots. It might be possible, but what would be the point?

One of the additional strings to my bow as a freelance writer and photographer is escorting tour groups - giving lectures etc. I don't do a lot of it, three or four times a year, but the gigs are always nice ones and takes me to interesting places. I used to go all over the world, as with my other assignments, but these days, having grown weary of flying and all the attendant hassles, I stick to Britain. At any rate, I am on such a trip now. Yesterday I was taking to my group about Charles II. In addition to talking about the politics of the Restoration I talked about his coronation portrait - now hanging in the throne room in Holyrood House in Edinburgh. Aside from his holding a sceptre and orb, as symbols of newly restored royal power, he's wearing four inch heels. I mentioned this fact to see the reaction. It was dispiriting, but not surprising. My group, 24 elderly Americans, smirked, sniggered, mocked, and cooed and ran through all the trite schoolground mockery. There was something so drearily predictable, unthinking and Pavlovian about it. I explained the history of heels, how they'd been a masculine fashion and how the cultural shifts in the Age of Enlightenment, with his emphasis on science, philosophy, comics and political thought changed men's fashion forever, while women, seen as ineducable, were allowed to keep their pretty colours, laces, silks and heels. My group were quite interested, I could see that, but then, as though on replay came the same smirking, cooking and mocking yet again. It was like they were on a continuous loop, stuck in a rut. Part of me felt like telling them I had a pair of 12cm stilettos in my room I am practicing with, but I need this gig.

Please do keep this thread going, melrose. It is appreciated, enjoyed and does indeed prompt considered response - on tangential issues as well as to the specific subject matter.

Congratulations on the milestone! That’s a lot of walking in high heels. I’ve never kept track of any of my mileage. You would have some interesting insights on heels and durability and the training necessary to be adept at walking in them. i like this thread by the way. Although I might not respond I always read and enjoy your posts.

Yes it’s encouraging. I think too that my recent efforts to try to learn to walk in 12cm heels has paid dividends in my being suddenly much more at home in 10cm heels

I have reached the "mile"stone last week of having walked 2,500 documented miles (around 4,000 km) in heels. To be clear, it's taken me over 12 years to do it, but needless to say, I've worn out and broken a lot of shoes in that time. Sometime within this month I will break some records concerning shoe durability. I may make it a special new topic to announce such, as no one seems to respond to this thread anymore. It may be getting a little bit long in the tooth.

Back home again after three days of scrambling around in work boots with a very heavy camera bag. Rather than plunging back into practicing in my 12cm stilettos I'm taking a day or two at leisure, in 8cm block heeled ankle boots. Gosh they are easy to walk in! And yet still satisfying in terms of being in heels.

Herd mentality. You were leading a tour of lemmings. There must have been a head lemming in this tour group and they all had to say the same thing.

Indeed. There was an element of “thou dost protest too much” about this. I’m sure there is an element of fascination here, and a secret longing simply to step away from the rules of the herd.

I agree, neutrality is probably the best course for this job. Keep in mind, they were smirking/sniggering/mocking on the outside, but am guessing many of them were intrigued on the inside...

I have a pair of Leviticus 2.0 Lug Heel OTK boots and I love them! Sizing is true to size but perhaps just ever so slightly a bit on the large end. Interestingly, sizes are only in 1/2 sizes (e.g. 8.5, 9.5, 10.5) etc. They are very well made and very much worth the price. I, generally speaking, have thin calves and thighs, so my boots shafts are a bit on the large side. Thus, I wear them over a pair of jeans and they are fine. They interior is not at all on the cheap material side, which is great, and the foot bed is very roomy (no cramped toes!). I plan on purchasing the new Kenzie model in a bit and if they are too wide in the shaft, I'll have them reduced in size a bit by a professional leather worker in St. Louis. I would make an out reach to Kristina (the owner/designer if you are full sized (i.e. 9, 10, 11) for her recommendation as to going up or down to the next 1/2 size.

I had an experience yesterday at the grocery store that would reinforce my belief that perceptions are changing, at least somewhat. I cannot perhaps do anything about your elderly American tourists, but it does seem like Gen Z is different than older generations. I know that my younger son's classmates (Class of 2027) seem to be far less concerned about what I wear than were my older son's (Class of 2017). And once again--this is becoming far too common to be a fluke--I was approached by a girl I would estimate to be about 12 (who was wearing Crocs, of course) and said, "Excuse me, sir, but I absolutely LOVE your heels!" I smiled and thanked her. At that moment I realized she was with an older woman who appeared to be her grandmother. The grandmother looked slightly uneasy about the encounter. Luckily, my grocery list was short, and I did not encounter them again.

I suppose it is odd that there are so many men on a high heel forum. We’re we’d a pretty normal lot really, whatever our out of the ordinary fashion tastes. I was always curious to try wearing heels - perhaps it’s the people-watching travel writer in me and my fascination with the foreign and exotic. Heels looked fun, stylish, a challenge and had the additional allure of the forbidden. I originally was just interested in trying 8-10cm chunky heel boots - a kind of edgier version of the hiking boots I’ve lived in for ages. I tried them and really liked them and was emboldened to push the envelope a bit further into the world of stilettos. And now trying 12cm stilettos- the black diamond slope of high heels!

Yes the story of how heels came to Europe and became a masculine fashion, later to be repudiated during the Age of Enlightenment is fascinating. I’ve done a fair bit of reading and research on the subject since I first learned of it and when I tell people about it they are invariably interested, even if they scoff at the idea of men in heels. Humans are a strange species

I'm very sorry to report that I've been going the wrong way lately. That is, I wore shoes pretty much all of our Labor Day weekend which I don't even consider to be high heels. My excuse is that I spent nearly the whole holiday under the weather. I felt absolutely terrible for most of three days. Speaking of weather, it couldn't have been more pleasant the entire weekend, and I did take the opportunity to get out of bed and get a couple of snaps (and yes, I don't pretend that they're anything better than that). Shoes are a mere 8 cm (on the scooter), and effective 9 cm (on the deck). I sometimes wonder why I don't wear mid heels more often, but I usually come to my senses after a week or so.

It has been a whole year! It doesn't seem like it's been a whole year. I need to go through my collection as well, and see what I really have. It seems like I have been culling a lot lately and not buying new, which is probably a good thing.

I haven't posted here in a good while, so I figured an update was in order. I'm still getting out. I just don't feel the need to post every single outing these days. Unless something newsworthy happens, which isn't often, I just go about my day. I am still buying shoes also. So i figured it was time to do another inventory check. It would also give me a chance to go through and pair down my collection by selling shoes that no longer fit or that I'm not too fond of anymore. And donate shoes that are a little worse for wear and not worth selling. I also wanted to see how close I was on how many pairs I actually had. I was guesstimating that between shoes and boots. I probably had around 100 pairs. A bit of my collection is stored in their original boxes. But the majority of my collection is stored in cardboard boxes and tubs. I would love to have proper shelves to display them or a closet of some kind, but that is just not possible. Between boxes and tubs, I currently have about 7 of them. And now the fun begins. It was fun going through everything and trying stuff on. I even discovered stuff I never new I had. And stuff that has never seen the outside world. Because alot of my shoes are a little too fancy to wear out doing everday task and errands. They need a special occasion to wear them. When it was all said and done, I ended up with about a dozen pairs that would be sold or donated. And my guesstimate was actually pretty close. I came in just a shade under the century mark, including the get rid of pile. So here is the numbers of where my collection stands after pairing it down. Shoes 57 pairs Knee boots or higher 5 pairs ankle boots or shoes 14 pairs Wedges 4 pairs Flats 2 pairs For a total of 82 pairs

I always have color on my toes and fingers. My toes are always in red except for October when they get colored hot pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month, while my fingers are always in pink/clear gel with the little pinkies in a color or design particular to the time of the year. Right now my left pinkie is in silver sparkle and my right pinkie is in gold sparkle. Got compliments this morning on both my mani and pedi both at church and my usual Sunday morning shopping. BTW closed toe red pumps at church, open toe double band, red sandals for my shopping trip. I also was wearing white capris with a red, white and blue top for the Labor Day holiday. I got compliments on my ensemble too!!!! Happy Heeling, bluejay

Leading tour groups is a really fraught business. You simply never know which way they’ll turn. The only safe thing is utter neutrality in just about everything. From the outside it looks like really easy money but it really isn’t.

I can't cut my own toenails or do other similar things due to how my thumb is held in place and the removed bones in my hand. So pedicures is the way to go. After a decade + of pedicures, I now enjoy my painted toes. Decades ago, I damaged the root bed of several fingernails, some split all the way to the root bed while other delaminate, split horizontally. They require acrylic to hold them together. Acrylic then needs to be covered with gel. So why not get color. This month they have a cat's eye look.

I know what you mean. I could probably get away with knee boots with chunky heels - but I’ve also learned that elderly American tour group people are utterly unpredictable and can either like or hate you for the flimsiest and wackiest of reasons.

Not wholly surprising, especially for that age group (which is getting to be my own age group at an alarming clip). In my experience, which is admittedly limited, people tend to react better to the real thing than they do to the idea. When people actually meet me in person, I get the distinct impression that many of these chucklers and chortlers think to themselves, "OK, that's a little different, but we can go with that." Whereas the idea of a drag queen reading books to their grandchildren upsets them greatly. I know--apples and oranges--but you get the idea. Not that I am suggesting you do so, discretion being the greater part of valor, but if you were to show up to your tour group, dressed as you normally do for such a gig, except wearing 4 inch block heeled boots, I bet the reaction would be generally much less than their reaction to Charles II.

Releasing pictures of my church OOTW for August 17. I chose to be blue, with my Steve Madden single band ankle strap sandals. Which feel really weird to me. And by weird, I mean they feel weird when I walk in them by their design. I don't know why this should be so, but it's probably because I have so few ankle strap shoes. I tend to stay away from them since my legs are so short, and I've heard that I should stick to mules to have a visually uninterrupted leg. I don't know if I believe that or not, but it's how I justify having so many mules. With the pants I chose, you can't really see the ankle straps anyway, so what's the difference?

Church outfit of the week, 10 August, 2025. Miu Miu strappy sandals in nude patent. 5 1/2" heel, 1" platform. I should wear these more often. As I was saving the photos to the folder entitled "HHPlace," I realized that I wore this exact same outfit to church about 2 years ago. Shame on me! 😆

My Church Outfit of the Week. I wanted to wear my red Via Spiga patent leather sandals, which I do not wear very often. I suppose at some point I need to either get over my reluctance to wear dressier shoes with everyday clothing, or I need to cull my shoe collection down to something more reasonable. It has remained at about 100 for several years, but the problem is, even if I wore a different pair of shoes every week, it would take me two years to run through everything once. I'm lucky that I have something to dress up for, because I really can't see wearing these shoes with shorts. The woman who sent me a picture of her feet two weeks ago was wearing flat sandals for church, disappointingly. She laughed about it and promised to do better in the future. I am trying not to overthink this, because it seems perfectly reasonable and normal to me, but it suddenly occurred to me two weeks after the fact, that most people would think it very strange that a woman who is certainly nothing more than an acquaintance would send me a picture of her feet. I did get a compliment during after church grocery shopping. A thirty-ish woman told me that she "loved my monochromatic look." Didn't say anything about the shoes specifically, though.

HA! I got a private message on social media after church today saying, "I didn't see you after church to beg for your approval on my improved shoe choice." Accompanying this was a photo of her feet in red sandals with wedge heels. Pretty cute overall! I feel a little bit funny about sharing it here, so I'll just share what I wore. I was kind of ambitious this week, with Michael Kors almost vintage sandals (circa 2012) with 5 1/2" heels, 1" platform.

Still no interaction between me and my high school classmate. I can't really blame him, he's got some major health issues going on right now, but it still seems strange to me that a guy I actually hung out with back in the day would boldly ask a question, and then not really react to the answer. On the other hand, the last time I actually saw the man, in my mid 20s, I was playing a gig at a bar with my band, and our drummer, 6 foot 4 and an imposing presence, had threatened to do harm to him. My last in-person mental image of him was his backside as he was running out the door. By the way, he deserved it. In other news, I'm still working overtime at the data center, and I have been getting up very early in the morning so that I can get my walks in. It's the only way. If I try to do it in the evenings, it ain't happening. I'm not good for anything after supper. I posted in the "New Shoes" thread, but I'll share some more photos of my Pentecost Sunday outfit. There's nothing really special about it, other than the red color, which is the liturgical color for that day. Now we're back to Ordinary Time until Advent, so everything will remain green for a long time. I've never felt comfortable taking pictures of myself, but I've tried some new poses that I picked up from social media. I hope I don't look like a complete idiot.