heelma

Not really serious, of course, but if you are looking for a scratch-resistant coating on a metal heel, you could suggest diamond, tungsten, etc

To me, this is a much bigger issue if the heel is wrapped into leather or other material, compared to those where the solid base of the heel is colored to match the material of rest of the shoe. Let's take leather, PU or particular patent leather shoes, and you will find some in which the heels are wrapped with this exact same material. Now you sink with your heel into a crack between rocks, concrete panels, cobblestones, etc, and that will most likely be enough already to rip your patent leather cover on the heel apart and expose the cheap looking plastic of the heel below. These cases look much worse and are much harder to repair compared to heels where you don't have such a "wrap". With those heels, and they don't need to be metal heels, you'll find some scratches on the heel, but most often, these are hardly noticeable, unless you look really closely. Also, you can simply fix those scratches yourself in many cases by using shoe polish or some other staining agent. However, the second group of heels often doesn't look as nicely to begin with, particularly if you have a simple black plastic heel paired with a very nice looking patent shoe, and the heel "sticks out" by not shining/reflecting. For the first group though, with the wrap, I found that shoe repairers often fix those for free when you go there and ask them to fix the heel tips for you. Also, it might be worth a try to fix it yourself, as often there is no material of the "wrap" missing but the "wrap" is just chipped. In such cases, you might be able to first pull the wrap back into place with tweezers and fix it with some glue. From the materials perspective, I don't think there is an easy fix insight. First of all, even material that is much harder to rip apart than leather or PU will probably not withstand the enormous forces you apply to it when you push your heel into such cracks. Second, even if such material existed, it will probably be nearly impossible to match the look of the rest of the shoe. I guess the conclusion is to mainly use "unwrapped" heels for longer walks outside and save the other ones for inside uses. This doesn't seem to have much to do with the price tag of the shoe, or which designer you choose if any.

She's wearing YSL Tribute Too pumps.

Hey, you might be right! I always thought they were peep-toes, but they really look more like those YSLs. She definitely made a lot of money with her story after it became public.

As far as the stereotype, I don't think it's as bad as it was. Nothing she had on was that revealing (skirt didn't seem too short), and no glam makeup (had that been excessive, I think that could have reinforced the 'hooker' image more).

20 years ago, the only women who wore 5" heels were probably hookers and strippers. Today, you'd be hard pressed to go thru an average mall (with say a Macy's or a Nine West store), and not be able to find 5" heels.

You are definitely correct that heels are higher now in general, which is great.

For example, the other day some companies had some marketing displays for their products on display somewhere. Two of them had guys sent, one a not very spectacular lady (sorry, don't want to offend anyone here), and one had a younger lady with 5.5" inch platform stilettos who apparently liked to wobble around with those quite a bit while standing and talking to potential customers. Guess where the most people went

From another perspective though ... here we know that Dupre is a callgirl, and now people see her wear those really high heels. I still wonder if some folks thought "ah, look at those hooker heels" ... and probably the same folks would have said "look, how sexy", if it were anyone else.

We had that discussion by PM on/around 18th Aug 2008 last time you elected to move threads around without warning - if you look through your PMs from that time, you'll find the discussion. If you now wish to have that discussion in the open, feel free - but it would be nice to have a *discussion*. Instead, I rather expect to see you slap yet another big red THREAD CLOSED marker on this thread when it turns into another public criticism of your strategy on moving threads :-(.

If I could place more than one "thanks" to a post, this would get three of them from me. I am glad there are other people here besides me who see the same issues.

Did anyone watch "Ashley Dupre", former NY Gov Spitzer's call girl, in an interview at ABC's "20/20" on 11/22/2008?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_9zaA7DnjU&feature=related

(only at 0:47-0:49; 1:32; 2:18-2:20)

On the one hand, it's good to see such high heels on TV. My guess is they are 5.5" with a 1" platform.

However, the fact that it's a former call girl wearing those might as well confirm the cliches about "hookers & high heels".

What do you think about this one?

Well, I gotta say some of this comes from the days when feminism was at its peak. A lot of we guys remember getting yelled at by a woman for whom we had opened a door. We would get something like "I can open a door myself -- what do you think I am, a weakling!" -- and in a gruff and mocking tone. After encounters like that, most of us decided "Ok, lady from now on you're going to have to." Be careful what you wish for. . .

That's exactly my explanation as well. I recall my boss back in Europe told me just the same story back in the 90s. Then, when I came to the US, things were different. Ladies seemed to expect this more in the US than in Europe.

I always hold the door open for my wife. Back in Europe, I probably didn't if it was just an acquaintance or stranger, just for the reason JMC mentions here.

As far as the costume party goes the two girls that I went with did a Great job doing my costume and makeover. I did not even recognize myself standing looking in the mirror. I was told by several who knew me as me that they did not know it was me.

Great! Yes, I wish ... maybe at one point, though I cannot imagine when and how this may ever happen for me.

So unfortunately, I don't have the luxury that girls are doing my costume, and I don't have the time for it either. It has to be quick. I want to be able to quickly change from "regular" to "costume" and back, without spending 30+ min in front of a mirror to make it perfect, to apply make-up, etc. This all has to happen in a car seat within 10 min! Heeling is the main objective.

And then, as I wrote before - even IF I made this outfit look perfect, I would still be easily recognized as a guy by people who really care to look closely, which is far less than 10% of the people I run into on the streets. So, is it worth the effort? Clearly not. As in so many things in life, you can get to 95% of a target quickly, but if you want to reach 99% or more, you really have to spend a lot of time and energy on it. Same here.

Another thought: Think of the thread posted some time ago here about fears of being caught on security cameras, cell phone videos, etc. By hiding enough of what helps people identify me, I don't have to worry about that anymore. All they can see of me are some non-unique parts of my face (that's why I have those big sunglasses on). Let people take their cell phone videos, have their fun about it and post it wherever they like - nobody will guess that it's me. So, let them laugh at this stranger in a woman's costume: they don't laugh at me.

Heelma

I wasn't trying to be rude or hurt your feelings, I wanted to give you a very honest answer. If you were happy with the out come, then I am very happy for you. You are the main person that you have to please and forget everyone else. The way I saw the pictures, looked like you stuck out like a sore thumb. I know how I felt back in 07 going to a costume party dressed as a woman and going in the store with 2 real women (FYI - I was very passable). I was more nervous then, than I was going out with my first planned heeling outting dressed in normal guy mode or out with my friend to dinner in 3 inch heels.

Again, Sorry I was just being honest. Which gets me in trouble lots of times.

No worries - you didn't hurt any feelings. Overall, I think I don't stick out as much though, as you guys think based on these pictures. If workers on the street call me "Miss", it can't be that terrible.

That costume party comparison is a good one - that's pretty much how I look at my outfit to begin with I don't want to be perfect. I am not going to a competition. I don't want to enter something similar to you guys' "leg contest". And you guys can tell me whatever you like, this outfit is closer to outfits worn be other women on the street than what you see at "drag queens".

It's more like I go to a costume party and the other people have a hard time identifying who actually wears this costume. And in the meantime, I have my fun with it.

Street heeling is my only option; I cannot do and I do not want to do this anywhere else, and street heeling is much more fun than silently doing it at home anyway, which I also did earlier, of course.

The alternatives are either to openly wear heels with regularly guys' clothes, and this would stick out at least as much as this outfit; or do what I used to do before, which was hiding my heels under long men's jeans and otherwise wearing regular guys' clothes. This latter option shows my face openly without any disguise, reduces the options of heel types I can wear and only adds additional stress to me.

I totally agree with Bootking. The aspect that keeps popping up in front of me is that on one hand you are totally freaked out at the prospect that someone will recognize you and your "cover" will be blown. On the other hand you dress in a manner that can't help but attract attention to you and the way you're dressed. In my opinion, if the fear of being recognized is paramount, wearing a pair of boots with heels under your jeans, with cuffs long enough to hide all of the heel except, perhaps, ½" or so, dressed as a man, would be a lot less conspicuous than appearing in public dressed the way you are in your picture.

Now, that's just my opinion....but, like Bootking, it's your opinion that counts:thumbsup:....

Interesting that this misunderstanding about being recognized, etc., keeps sticking around here. I don't care if I raised any strangers' attention, in the way you suggested in your response here. That's fine, and I really don't care at all. What I do want to avoid is that if someone who knows me were around there (which is probably not the case anyway), sees me and recognizes me immediately, and I don't think that's possible, even he takes a picture.

That being said ... after having done both, secret heeling with men's clothes and going out like shown in the pictures, I largely don't see a difference between people's behavior with the one or the other. What I did see though was that if I wore stilettos or noisy heels with a guy's outfit, that some guys looked and laughed. With this one, I may get more comments, but there are many positive ones as well, which was much more rare in the other case. Think about this: you see someone just from the corner of your eyes, see woman's clothes, long blond hair and hear the sound of stilettos. Do you look up? I know, everyone here would say yes, but for another reason Many, many people don't, particularly girls. But if it's a stiletto sound in conjunction with a guy's figure, then most people think that "something is wrong".

One more comment about the jacket: most girls' coats and jackets have way too short sleeves for me, so I was looking around forever to find something that sort of fits me, that I like and that doesn't cost too much. Interesting that it's so much easier with jeans, pants and skirts.

Thanks for your comments. I know that this was not intended to look perfect. As I said, it's more about wearing heels under camouflage. I don't care if it looks good, sexy or whatever. My mission is to a) wear heels while being comfortable and I do feel more comfortable when wearing this stuff than guys' clothes with heels, prevent others from recognizing me, c) stay as cost-efficient, not to say "cheap" as possible and d) being able to "switch" from my completely normal self to such an outfit and back in the shortest possible time (which takes about 10 min for me). Sure, that wool jacket looks better with a black skirt, which I also did already. And when I wore a skirt, I did get "sexy" comments from strangers, though they were probably more likely meant to make fun of me than real. But with a similar outfit as this one, some workers on the street once said "Step back, Miss!" to me. With respect to the wig, it was the highest quality wig I could find before Helloween. I also like it because it's long and helps covering things up. Further, I don't want to mess around with make-up, as people who want to will still see I am a guy and it takes way too much effort to do it. Lastly, I know that the sunglasses look completely off, but again, this is part of my strategy to protect my identity, and this remains my top-most priority. Similarly, the gloves hide my "guy hands". So, this is all about wearing heels and looking more like a woman than like a guy with the least effort, the least expenses and the highest identity protection. I don't think that anyone who knows me could identify me based on these pictures, though I deleted parts of my face here as additional protection. Oh .... and I know that those platforms are not normal street-wear, of course. That's more for my own fun.

After being done with Payless, I wanted to have some fun with walking platform booties from Pleaser. I still LOVE wearing platforms, though other stilettos are a lot of fun, too. The shoes are the "Indulge-560" style, black patent, 5 1/4" heel and 1 1/4" platform. In these pictures, taken in a mirror in a strip mall, I wear the otherwise same outfit as at the Payless store, just those platform booties. I am showing three pics of mine here, in order to give an idea how the outfit looks. Obviously, I am bending my knees in the one picture just to show the heels better for this picture.

Ok, I finally managed to take some pics of myself while being out. Unfortunately, the quality is kind of lousy, as it's from my cell phone.

I took this first set of pictures at a Payless store, where I also tried on some shoes (that unfortunately didn't fit). And why does Payless put their garbage can right in front of a big mirror at the end of the aisles?

Interestingly, I didn't get any comments while being in the store, though there were many customers in there. The store personnel just said "hello" very friendly. I am positive that people notice if they look more than just 3 sec at me, but nobody seemed to care.

I wore the Fullerton pumps from Payless (http://payless.com/Catalog/ProductDetail.aspx?&TLC=Womens&SLC=WomensDesigners&BLC=WomensDesignersLelaRose&Width=Regular&ItemCode=61536&LotNumber=064326&Type=Adult&Popularity=74&DescriptiveColor=Green ; picture is here: http://www.hhplace.org/discuss/attachments/everybody/4013d1224557261t-perpetual_payless_shoesource_thread-064326_1_300x300.jpg ) under long jeans from Avenue. For the top, I finally found a black wool jacket at target that has long enough sleeves. In addition, I wore a wig with long blond hair and a small purse from Walmart.

Sorry again for the picture quality. The heels are bit hard to see in these pictures; in the second one, I pulled up the jeans in order to show them better. Also, I would have preferred to have a picture of my entire outfit, rather than one of the bottom and one of the top.

Exactly. How could I have worn a pair of stiletto mary janes to Macy's? I wore them because I like them, and I don't waste time acting like "I hope nobody sees me". What if people see me? Of course they will see; I'm now standing 6'4". But I've found that other than some looks and maybe a double take, nothing bad happens. I'm sure folks might think all kinds of things about it, but it doesn't matter what some strangers think. What matters is what you think of yourself.

I agree in principle with you and the others here. I definitely don't care anymore what strangers may think or may say about it. However, my main concern with wearing heels really bold with men's clothes, such as by tacking jeans into boots, is that someone who might know me and who shouldn't know may see it. Yet, this never happened ever to me and is rather unlikely, but I always say better safe than sorry with respect to this. After months of hiding heels under long men's jeans and otherwise looking completely normal, I recently switched to the other extreme and dress up as a woman completely (incl. wig and sunglasses), except for makeup. As I always thought that it looks wrong when I wear heels with my men's clothes but rather associate them with a woman, I feel much better about it, and it also gives me anonymity and more confidence. I went out with long pants/jeans or lately even with knee-length or ankle-length skirts and a double layer of tights, and it was always a better experience to me than what I did before. Always with 4-5" stilettos (pumps or boots), mainly from Payless. My costume seems to work well enough that I even heard comments like "wow, that looks sexy" or "hi, babe" or "please step back, miss!", particularly in the dark (with streetlights). I could almost not believe it when I heard those comments! It's incredible how such little effort seems to make these things possible! I guess it's really time to post some pictures here.

But as we all know, it's everyone's own choice if streetheeling works better for him either very open with men's clothes, or hidden with men's clothes or with dressed up as woman.

Did anyone watch the NYC tree lighting ceremony? I think the presenter wore thigh high leather boots. (Or were they tight leather pants instead?) In any case, it was good to see that on TV!

On a recent flight, I noticed something in the Safety Information card (in the pocket in front of me) that I just had to share here.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g143/bamajen/Misc/Untitled-1.jpg

So I guess this means, unless you want to possibly be forced to toss your gorgeous pair of shoes in the trash in case of an emergency, and go barefoot, don't wear heels on your flights!

You can probably call yourself lucky to be alive after such occasions and be happy to actually be able to continue to wear heels

I wore them to work once.

Considering I work in a mostly male office, I got some looks lol

I bet! Though I guess your colleagues are already used to the idea that you wear really high heels? The brown ones really don't look slutty or like stripper shoes at all, mainly because of the upper material, but they are definitely very high for work, I'd say. I definitely like those the best as well.

Though I have walked around with platform stilettos myself many times already, I wonder how much wobbling is involved or if you ever had issues with tripping/twisting with those? I'd say the moment you step onto something bigger than a small rock on the streets with that platform, and you're going to run into serious issues.

It shows the search requests for "High Heels" going down over time. I personally think it has remained about the same in number but is dropping as a percentage of searches as people search for a more wide variety of terms and the amount of web content multiplies.

This chart on it's own doesn't mean anything.

Thanks a lot. I agree with your interpretation.

Besides that it's indeed a pure statistical matter like you said, simply searching for "high heels" on Google doesn't mean that fewer people buy or wear them.

The trick is to wear a skirt with slingbacks.

Today, I did it! It's much more fun with it, really. I wore this one from Payless http://www.payless.com/Catalog/productdetail.aspx?ItemCode=61652&ProductColor=Black&Width=Regular&TLC=Womens&SLC=WomensShoes&BLC=WomensDressTrendy , with two layers of black tights and a knee-long black skirt out on the streets (with a women's wool jacket, a blond wig and big sunglasses). I didn't get any more looks or comments as if I wear long pants ... maybe slightly more looks, but nothing bad. I can't say it often enough: street heeling is much more fun this way, compared to hiding them under men's clothes!

Thats why they started it in the girls forum, because they DO NOT want guys replies. If they want them, they will ask.

No, they can not, every member is bound by the website rules, so if these get broken, and we dont see it, report it to bring it to our attention. (It's really getting boring repeating this over and over again)

I haven't expected any other answer. Obviously, there are examples of both, but I don't have the time right now to collect them for you. Will do later.

First of all, let me admit that I did not read the entire thread. So I apologize if this topic has already been discussed (and I am almost sure it was).

I just saw this post here in the High Heel Movies section: http://www.hhplace.org/discuss/your_favourite_high_heel_movies/12304-new_shoes.html#post186928

Obviously, this guy is not real and he doesn't do us any favor by doing what he does. However, as this is obviously a secret/hidden camera arrangement that should show reactions of other customers in the store, I am wondering if you guys ever saw such reactions as well when you tried on shoes?

As of my own experience, I only tried shoes on in a store very occasionally and secretly as of now, but I am thinking of becoming more aggressive with that in some Payless stores when I am wearing women's clothes and a wig.

When we had the debate, moons ago, if guys should be banned from the girls' part of the forum, I put forward that the idea that 'for the girls' should be like the girls' powder room.

There they could have girly conversations without the guys butting in. OK, the walls would be VERY transparent, so, if we wished, we could see what they were talking about, but I'm sure that they could send PMs if they wanted to remain confidential.

Yes, totally agree.

What I find very disturbing though when I browse through the girls' section is that there seem to be increasingly many "fake girls" there, thus guys pretending they're girls. In some cases you can simply tell by the topic of a newly starting thread and/or the chosen nickname what's going on. Or, in my case, I once sent a PM to such a "girl" and "she" asked me for a picture. A bit strange, isn't it?

Despite the rules, and even seeing previous posts deleted right in front of their eyes in the girls forum, Guys STILL post messages there, sometimes even saying "I know this is the girls forum, but...."

I mostly like this rule ... just that it comes with some built-in nuisances, such as if someone finds an interesting topic but can't contribute to the discussion there, he needs to start a new thread about the exact same topic somewhere else, thereby splitting up topics, and most girls won't reply to the same topic in "For Everyone" if they already replied to it in the girls' section.

Also, some girls seem to "misuse"(?) this rule to start threads and discussions about guys topics and can write whatever they want there - right or wrong - without the chance of a guy to even post a link to the discussion from the guys' perspective in another section.

According to Google it is:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22high+heels%22

The end is nigh!

Can anyone explain to me what this page actually does and what it shows? A graph without any further explanation means nothing to me!

This guy has more nerve than some of us. I wish I could have been in his shoes. Not very bad comments, just confused looks.

New Shoes

Com'on, how much goofier can it get? Look at this guy, he really only did it for the only purpose of catching the others' reactions, not for real. This obviously won't help the case of men wearing heels.

I'm not sure what it says about me that, for the first video, when they showed the 4 shoes on the table, I recognized the 3rd one (Patricia Field boots) as these http://www.payless.com/Catalog/ProductDetail.aspx?&TLC=Womens&SLC=WomensBoots&BLC=WomensBootsTrendy&Width=Regular&ItemCode=64245&LotNumber=066503&Type=Adult&Popularity=24&DescriptiveColor=Black&Size=12

they sell at Payless.

Also, for those 6" YSL shoes, it looks like to have at least a 1 1/2" platform, so they're not as bad as a flat-sole shoe with a true 5"-6" heel. Similar for the "Wear 6" heels" in the 3rd video, they all appear to have from a 1/2" to 1" platform (hidden on some). Can't really complain though, as I'd still rather see a 5" heel on a shoe with a platform than just a simple 3 1/2" heel on a flat sole shoe (the 'high' heel of the 70's).

You simply can't expect mainstream to wear 5 - 6" without a platform.

I definitely like the hidden platform invention quite a lot, particularly in conjunction with stiletto heels. This makes platforms much nicer looking and more publicly accepted.

Does anyone watch this regularly? This lady seems to be really into heels! Maggie Rodriguez not only wears them all the time, but she also has discussion about heels on her show with various "experts" very frequently lately. I wonder if she has a heel fetish as well.

Here are some examples:

1. Topic: the worse the economy, the higher the heels:

Note the YSL 6" heels and the comments these ladies make on how many of these sell right now!

2. Topic: Avoiding high heel mishaps - how to walk in really high heels?

3. A podiatric surgeon(!) explains how to prepare yourself for wearing 6" platform heels:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/ladies-wear-your-6-inch-heels/294302796

Yes! Finally a podiatric supports to wear heels! This doesn't happen very often.