Aglo

May I put a good word in for rubber flip-flops! 35 years ago I used to walk around the hills of Nepal in them. Incredibly practical for the landscape (as long as you avoided stubbing a toe), they could be whipped off to wade across a river and prevented your feet becoming boiled potatoes in the hot weather (although sometimes the sweat made them too slippery, especially on the downhill where I had to carry them and go barefoot on occasion). I am still walking the Nepali hills, but can't wear them now as you need to wear them all the time to keep the soles of your feet thick and hard.

I am another who does not like pointy toes. Today, I threw out a couple of pairs that had been languishing in my wardrobe, unworn, years. It was this act that prompted this post . .

Nice shoe . . . if you file off the notch, the bottom level sticky-outy bit and a corresponding section of the heel.

Hmm . . . , you want fitness: get your trainers on and jog/run around your locality. No expensive gyms or equipment, fresh air, good scenery or lots of interesting things to pass by. Put your heels on and sit down or move softly when socialising.

My pat-downs were during departure from London Heathrow. It was a few years ago (but this century!) and I had to take off the shoes and deposit them in a tray after been called aside. Either it's my thick skin, or tendency to look on the humorous side, but I walked away smirking rather than fuming. Thinking back to the event, what I remember much more than the pat-down is a girl in the departure lounge sniggering to her boyfriend about my boots. The only time I've had this experience (or the only time I've noticed it, anyway). HappyinHeels, I came through Heathrow last January and was again singled out for a close-touch experience. Can't have been the Asics trainers (Asics - I'm a runner!) so I have got to presume it was the long hair/earings combo, or else purely random selection, which you can't rule out. Again, it didn't give me grief; I reflected on what a boring, unsatisfying existence these security people have to suffer. To have to do a job like that to earn your money is demeaning.

I have flown in heels two times, both in 4" narrow-heel boots. And both times I was drawn aside for an extended 'pat down'. This has never happened at any other time. I like to think that it was just coincidence, and that it was my very long hair and earrings that brought me attention, not the boots!

Wonderful, dww! I have a 1988 normally aspirated diesel 110 in with 320,000 km on the clock (200,000 in my ownership, during which the engine has had a rebore and, recently, a new set of piston rings). I bought it in 1999 since which it has carried me around the hills of Nepal with almost no mechanical burps. From time to time I dream of replacing it with the latest model, but with 150% import tax on top of the CIF Nepal price it remains but a dream. Would love to have a turbo, as a normal engine can't work efficiently at altitude so that the higher the old beast gets the thicker and blacker the exhaust emerges. But I'm happy to keep feeding it rubber bushes and other suspension bits . . . and motor on for ever, and ever.

I bought the first heels I wore outside in a store. It was six months after I had seen the same shoes and gone 'wow!, these are so cool - wish I was able to wear them'. It worked out! To answer Walkonit, I was once in a position to wear women's shoes that I had not bought but, on looking back, and before the days of the encouragement gained from the HH Place, it just didn't click at that time that I might actually do it.

Sorry Tacchi, you're not making sense. I could wear flat shoes with four inch platforms (and heels) and I would be four inches taller. But if I have four inch platforms with four inch higher heels in addition I am going to be even taller. Not by four inches obviously; what I am trying to say that the platform height is a separate issue from the heel height. I think we're on the same line but getting stuck in interpretations!

Hey Tacchi, I can't believe that it needs a 10cm platform to get me 10cm higher. That would imply that a higher heel has no effect at all! But then you rescue yourself. As an architect often on site I have plenty of triangulation to do in the day, so I like to switch off in the evening :-).

I voted 'both'. As one of the McGregor ilk I have the clan kilt, but after buying the thing I never went the whole hog with the accessories, like the skein dhu, the sporran, the brogues, so I have really never worn it. Not a complete waste, as my daughter has! As for the skirt, see me in a kurta in the gallery.

thanks gaijin! I really think that the guys for skirts and kilts should look at the kurta-type look. Your take?

Hey!, I'm 5'7 1/2, but as an ex-rock climber I can get to where many of the tall people can't get! Even in heels! Might tread on the cake, though.

I can because I'm a women's US 9 and very narrow to boot (someone on this site must have used that one before!). I actually find most women's shoes too wide. Image the torture of my alpine climbing career when I could not get a boot which would be narrow enough to stop my toes taking all the force (especially downhill). Anyway I go for high heels for, to be honest, a bit of turn on, but also a lot because I prefer to see my feet look (even) smaller and I love the huge choice of styles. I mean, just factoring the heel type into it adds a gazillion options. What more? Adding 10cm to my height gets the top of my head to just over 180cm and makes conversation with my Dutch friends easier :-). Another: the heels mean I watch where I am putting my feet, to the point that I stumble less than sometimes I might do in trainers. And finally, ach, I'm comfortable be a bit of a non-conformist.

I received my Franco Sarto loafers, following an amazingly smooth process through the central post office. They only charged me $1.5 import tax!

Anyway here are a couple of shots of me wearing them in two different dress modes; one normal jeans, the other with what is known here as a 'kurta' and some woolly leggings. Both men and women wear kurtas. The one I have on is a more feminine cut.

http://www.hhplace.org/picture.php?albumid=715&pictureid=7445

Only a couple of days ago I removed a silver spiral toe ring which I had worn continuously for several months.

It looked good, but I was traveling from Kathmandu to south-east Nepal wearing these shoes for the first prolonged time. After few hours (it was an 11-hour drive) the foot I had the ring on started to get seriously sore. At first I thought it was just the tight-ish shoes which I knew had to be broken in, but then I realized it was the ring. Removing it solved my problem. But I still like toe rings and will try to get some made which do not exert pressure on adjoining digits.

I've never thought of ankle chains. They are quite common among the women here and it's easy to get them made (in silver or gold) to any design and size you want. Perhaps I'll give it a try. . .

Aglo

I also have problems with peep toes. I have very long toes which can stick out beyond the front of the shoe or sandal. So I have to limit myself to shoes with very small 'peeps' which hold the toes in :-)

I had my traguses done a couple of years ago, and recently got my septum done. I also have a nostril stud. Along with two rings in each ear the traguses I am happy to leave in for work meetings, but the others are stripped out. Never had any adverse comments.

Yes, I'll let you know how they turn out after I have been through the excruciating process of extracting them from the General Post Office parcel counter in Kathmandu. Nepali women and girls are delightful. Makes up for all the downsides of living here. (Although I suppose, as I've been here for 28 years, I've got to reflect that the other upsides win.) I have been married to one for the last 20 years. As for fashion sense, they are so basically pretty that they can get away with anything in my view!

I recently ordered these Franco Sarto loafers:

http://www.shoes.com/en-US/Product/06851-5160276/Franco+Sarto/Brandy+Leather/Women's+Banjo.aspx

from shoes.com and am waiting for their shipment to arrive here in Kathmandu. They are a little conservative (if a man wearing them can be such!) but will be great for the rough footpaths of this city. And hopefully ordinary enough looking that I can achieve my desire of wearing them for work meetings (which are almost always at other's offices).

At the same time I also ordered Franco Sarto's Bolt oxford based on the same heel/sole unit. In the blurb on the web page it says "Add a touch of menswear to your look with the Bolt oxford booties from Franco Sarto". Will the day ever come when "menswear" will be replaced by "womenswear" in this sentence! Probably not.

P.S. I switched my mood to Hot as I am presently in the south-east of Nepal, an extension of the north Indian plain, with no aircon and an unreliable power supply, so that the sweat pours down when the fan stops!

Great thread, and great starter by Thighbootguy. My first try of heels, was to have a go at my mum's; getting my feet into, by that time, the flowers of her youth: thick strappy sandals. They didn't fit me too well, with a substantial overlap at the back end. And then at college in the early seventies I bought the male high heels, at that time fashionable for a year or two (but they were horribly plastic affairs), but could never find the courage to go out in them. I remember being very jealous of some guys in college who'd made the obvious leap and gone into female platform boots, looking great. And then my interest stopped as I moved out into work and the 'eco' and 'natural' movements of the early eighties, which successive girlfriends were into. I then got a posting with VSO (Voluntary Service Oversees, the British Peace Corps but with no government direction), which sent me to the Far West of Nepal, a roadless piece of the atlas and not a place to wear anything except serious walking footwear. Meanwhile I had rented out my house in the UK. On a visit back home one year, I came back and found that one of the tenants had left a pair of high heel knee boots in the cellar (along with a huge quantity of other detritus, which took me a day to get to the town dump; surreal, considering the country of deprivation from where I'd just come). They were probably a size too small for me but I got into them and thought they looked great! Ah!, but I had to get back to Nepal and had not the sense and confidence to realise I could have taken them away without notice. Then the fashion came round in the late eighties in Nepal and, I think Africa as well, for very high heels but with platforms and very wide heel bottoms, so that they looked very sexy but could also negotiate rough and pot-holed paths with ease. I first looked at them when my wife saw them in Kathmandu. But her incredibly wide feet could not slip into them so there was no purchase. Something attracted me back to the shop a few months later where I got the biggest size which fit me just nice. So my first case of public heeling was walking out of the shop and up the bazaar to my jeep. From that time on I have enjoyed wearing heels, and become more knowledgeable about which are nice and which are not. My first foreign purchase was a pair of Western Ranch five-inchers which, looking back, are probably the most ugly pair of shoes I have ever worn, heels or not (I threw them out last week to a guy with a small cart taking away our rubbish; I can't imagine he'd get anything for them). Then I ordered and received three pairs from Silhouette, a company who supported/financed hhplace until recently. They came quickly and were what I wanted (at the time, anyway). My next acquisitions were low quality local shoes which ran out at size 39, whereas I am a 41. Fun with the salesgirls but not with my wife on arrival home. I need a pair of heels to look exactly right on me so any mis-sizing is a no-no. So all the heels I wear now are of UK/Brazilian origin which, if not exactly 'chunky' as the saying goes, are very strongly made' even if they have quite a sharp heel. My latest pair are again from Silhouette (with whom I have no financial connection!) and are probably the nicest looking heels I ever got (ok, until the next pair). My wife even ventured that they look good on me! Getting back, finally, to the direction of this thread, do I do anything more than heels? Well, I have waist-length hair (helped I suppose by Nepali women normally having the same, and so they are able to fix mine anywhere and easily). I like to grow my fingernails long, and paint them if they look right for it. And that's about it. Just to add that I have no inhibitions about wearing heels almost anywhere including airports and embassy parties. Not many people notice, and you only get one or two who make a thing of it (goodness knows why, my common thought is that they have difficulty departing from a military perception of what decorus apperel should be.) That's about it. I've been writing work reports all day, and was in the groove for a change. Aglo

I'm 1.72m height (5'7.5") and wear 41 European men's and size 10 US women's. 'No problems in his obtaining any shoe he wants then' you're thinking. But in Nepal the largest women's size is a 39, and on trips to Thailand I've only seen a few 40's. Having narrow feet means I can slip into smaller sizes at the expense of 'blue toes', but it has to be an extremely desirable design of shoe to make me endure this. (Only a couple of pairs, to date.) I have however recently cracked the Zappo's thing by going through a company which provides world-wide shipping for them. I got the design I wanted in the size I wanted (but half a size too small unfortunately - my fault) delivered to my door here in just over a week! This opens up lots of alternatives for me, but NOT CHEAP!

You're right it had to happen sometime. I must admit though that I do enjoy it when I'm out in heels and either see a woman in lower heels than mine, or one not walking in them as well as I do.

Chris

Right on . . . and does the way a women walks in heels become a significant part of her attraction (or the contrary). Does for me. There's lots of women out here who put the heel and the sole down at the same time rather than rotating on the heel - and it simply looks awful.

The sexual thing plus the adrenaline rush from doing something risque was how it started for me. I still enjoy these highs, but I've also had pleasure from situations where I'd been lost in concentration on something or somebody else and had completely forgotten anything about what was on my feet. I've had many moments of frustration dressing for a meeting or a party, putting on the heels and feeling the outfit is just right, then very reluctantly taking them off and putting on the ususal shapless blobs which I have to endure as a man (apart from sport and outdoor pursuits).

As far as I can see it's nothing to do with age or mileage, its just who you are, and what you've got going for you out of the gene soup. I'm 55 and have spent the last 25 years walking round mountainous Nepal (working, I'll have you know!), and going off to run marathons in my spare time. I still run regularly and stumble in high heels no more than I stumble in flats (but I'm half crippled at the moment after crashing a bare foot into a door during a power cut.)

The thing I worry about is the body starting to seriously limit one's options in life. This was brought home to me just today; the whole of the south of Nepal is paralysed by disturbance at the moment, just at the time I need to do a building inspection there. As no traffic is on the roads I reckoned I could fly down and walk the 50km or so to the site, even take my bike and do it much quicker - but with this foot I'm stuck in Kathmandu. But, it's only temporary; it will heal and I will heel. When the time comes that it doesn't heal thats when I'll finally get old.

We need a smiley for crippled!

Hobble on . . .

I've got 5' and 7.5" skin to floor. And small feet ,so no trouble at all with sizes - except in Nepal where the biggest women's size is 39 and I need a 41. I certainly enjoy the extra 4" of my boots but I don't think it's a real height desire as I already tower over most Nepalis. The huge USA guys and Dutch women I know is a different matter . . .