mlroseplant

Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart, and one which I have probably spent way too much time contemplating. Aside from a few fetish people, the most recent example being the "leaner" guy who posted elsewhere on this forum, I think we can all agree that the ideal situation is to appear as though walking in heels is completely effortless.

I do agree that there are a ton of fairly useless videos out there, and a few that actually give horrible advice. As you have surely discovered, there are a few exponents out there who still advise walking toe-to-heel, something I defy somebody to actually accomplish. We'll make exceptions for ballerinas and professional Latin dancers, but it's a patently ridiculous assertion that anybody should ever walk this way. Nobody walks that way, even in bare feet. That being said, one definitely does not want to strike the ground aggressively with the heel, it is there to act as a stabilizer for just an instant until the ball of the foot can contact the ground. Ignore this advice at your peril! Don't ask me how I know.

So it all comes down to what you really want to accomplish with your walk. It has been the subject of much debate just exactly how much femininity, if any, that a guy needs to emulate while walking in heels. I don't mind striving toward the more feminine looking walk, but more important to me is attempting to minimize my natural bowleggedness. Therefore, I spend a lot of effort trying to walk with my knees together, something that is not traditionally natural for me. This becomes more and more difficult the steeper you go, for reasons I cannot really explain.

I see I have STILL not answered your question, and I cannot do so at this time, as I have run out of time. I gotta go to work. If there is still interest in the next couple of days, I will continue.

Found it!

Here's a little outfit I put together to run some errands yesterday when I got to feeling a little better.

I came really close to having a No. 38 failure yesterday. A chunk of wood fell out of my Bebe mules, right below my big toe. If I could figure out where it happened, I could probably glue it back in, and you'd never really know. I'm not going to call it No. 38 yet, but for now they are strictly house shoes, and possibly early morning walking shoes.

Being as I am feeling under the weather, and have time to do such things, not being at work, I have come up with a list of shoe failures for the past 10+ years. I'm not counting shoes I've decided to get rid of for whatever reason, I'm talking about actual failures. I come up with 37.

The most common reason for failure is that the shoes just simply wore out. They got too beat-up looking to justify keeping. The second most common reason for failure is broken shanks. This causes the heel to become all wobbly, despite the fact that the heel itself has not broken. I chalk this common failure up to the fact that I choose to walk in shoes that weren't really meant to be walked in.

4 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

My early childhood years I was dressed for the occasion.   Three sets of clothes -  School, Church and Play-  Church clothes were appropriate for parties and most more formal formal occasions.  Here  I am, at 68 years of age, still practicing these same three divisions of dressing except, since my retirement, my daily morning and early afternoon choices trending more towards more casual  apparel.

I guess I do technically have three sets of clothes: Work, church, and whatever else is not either of those two. Although, I guess I could make a fourth category for outside-of-work-work. And of course, it depends upon the season.

3 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

The ladies can't compete. I'm the only high heel person in mixed company most of the time. 

I believe the high heel industry has stayed alive by selling collectibles that are stored in closets for the most part.

I don't believe that I personally know anybody, other than my friend the tailor/nail tech person, with whom I am not actually allowed to interact these days, who wears actual high heels. Even my wife, who was quite famous back in Vietnam for being a high heeled queen, never wore "actual" high heels. Let's face it, they were mid-heels. I do have one picture of her wearing actual high heels, but that is long in the past, and is not happening today.

20 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

If your church is anything like mine, appearing at a service tastefully dressed will win every time.  I appreciate your posting pictures of what you wear each week.  Makes me wonder though if any of the women showing up are wearing higher heels.  I really like the pair you are wearing in this picture.  

Our church has two distinct services. It used to have three, but attendance has been down, like it is for practically all mainline churches across the country, and especially since the pandemic. The "early" service, at 9 a.m., is the so-called "contemporary" service, and has all popular style music with a guitar based band. I never go to this service, unless it's absolutely necessary, meaning that somebody from that band is sick or on vacation or something. The funny thing about that band is that everybody in it is older than me, except for the choir director, who is the de facto leader and pianist. Contemporary, indeed!

The service I attend is now called the "blended" service, which means that half of the music is accompanied by the pipe organ, and consists of hymns that are 100 or more years old, and the other half of the music is accompanied by piano, bass, guitar (which is the choir director, my son, and me), and that consists of hymns that were written, say, 20 to 50 years ago. Also, the traditional choir sings at this service.

Anyway, that was a lot of background to say that no, nobody wears heels anymore. Not for real. You do occasionally see somebody who is pretending that she's wearing heels.

6 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

Wasn’t there a female country singer named “Kitty Wells” that was popular back around the late 1960’s?  Perhaps you retrieved a name from really deep in your memory that you might have heard and forgotten.  

I was thinking perhaps Kitty Carlisle. I'd never heard of Kitty Wells, but I looked her up. Both of them Kittys (Kitties?) lived well into their nineties, and were quite influential in their respective genres.

21 hours ago, mickeyunc said:

Katie Wells?

It's a name I made up. I'm sure there is somebody out there called that, but I don't know her.

Yesterday's church OOTW. Less than special, but you can't hit a home run every time at bat. Besides, I'm kind of tired of winning.

Here is what I wound up doing--I wore jeans (the same ones pictured below), a turtleneck shirt, as it is still not warm, and was very windy yesterday, and my white Nike cheer shoes, which are stylized trainers.  To my mind, the cheer shoes are pretty girly, but for some reason they are enthusiastically endorsed by my wife. I even took them to Vietnam, where they didn't raise a single eyebrow. My reasoning was that my job was to drive the car, find the place, smile and nod a lot, and we wouldn't be doing any walking, so what is the point of wearing heels? This woman had a very nice restaurant in a working class neighborhood, and has all of the licenses necessary to sell street food as they plan to do together. They must have really liked each other because they talked for an hour on the phone after we had been back home a while. I can't really understand the Vietnamese language, but I can understand the tone. My wife hasn't been this happy in a long time. I hope it lasts.

In other news, I am trying out my wide(ish) legged jeans again. I understand that they're back in style. Also, I found this lightweight coat that I'd forgotten about. I don't really like either of them, but they got the thumbs up from my Twin Cities fashionista friend. I reckon that's good enough for me. The only problem I see is that I'm remembering one of the things I don't like about bootcut jeans, and haven't missed at all for several years--if you wear mules, as I am wont to do, the hem of the pants often gets caught between the bottom of your foot and the top of the shoe. I hate that. This is not a problem with other styles of shoes, so perhaps giving my pumps some more love is in order.

I am going with my wife to meet up with a possible business partner in the food business. I have a huge decision to make. Actually, it's not huge, but I like being dramatic sometimes. Do I wear heels or not? Wifey says she doesn't care, but you can't always take her at her word.

21 hours ago, mickeyunc said:

Yes it is.   But just looking for clarification as to what is against the site rules.  seems to me many have broke some.

I am doing my best to be humorous here. I really am. If I were to make a video of what I am about to say, it would be more lighthearted than it comes off in print. You may as well look for clarification about why Katie Wells wouldn't go with you to the junior prom.

21 hours ago, mickeyunc said:

Just for clarification.  I am a guest here and will always try my best to follow the rules.  Very confused at the moment.  After reading (TECH) post regarding rules, and no CD/Tv post,  i see many post of men dressed in skirts and dresses, hose and heels.  How is this not against the rules?   Not calling anyone out,  just need clarification?

Oh, I wouldn't bother much worrying about it. I think you intrinsically know what is appropriate, and what is inappropriate. Life is full of ambiguity, is it not?

5 hours ago, Clarity said:

It's inspiring to see how far you pushed it, for sure. Due to my position at work I still find it challenging to wear heels anywhere near as often as I'd like to, but I think that's more on me than her. (Despite all the D&I statements we make, I'd be concerned about the real world professional consequences. We're pushing the boundaries a little bit when we're going places around town where the risk is lower to run into employees, but I don't know how it would actually pan out if I / we did.)

At least these days we're traveling a fair bit, so when ever we're out of town we are able to make use of our many mostly matching pairs and enjoy them together instead of me watching her. Remind me, does your wife wear any - elevated or not - footwear you can appreciate, or do you need to compensate for both of you at all times in that department?

I work construction, so obviously I can't wear heels at work, nor would I want to. I have occasionally seen coworkers and bosses outside of work. Some are surprised, some are not. It's never seemed to cause any bad consequences for my career.

My wife used to be famous for her heels. She wore them pretty much every day. In the last few years, she has developed knee/ankle problems. Let's put it this way--I can and do walk faster in very high heels than she can in flats. I don't believe she has any cute shoes left anymore. Crocs and Sketchers it is, these days. And that's ok, it just doesn't matter to me anymore.

Thanks all, for the feedback. Perhaps the reason why I have been getting bolder with color is because I feel like I've been stuck in a rut for several years. I don't know why this should bother me, because it's not like I'm surrounded by terribly fashionable people, but it's probably due to a couple of things.

Number 1, my fashionista friend from the Twin Cities area is the kind of person who has outfits planned out weeks in advance. I feel like I wear pretty much the same thing every day, and the same thing once a week on Sunday. Sunday is of course dressier.

Number 2, I had, until my 40s, a reputation for being a fashion disaster. There was one period in my early 20s where I had gone without a girlfriend or even a date for several years. My best friend at the time put it up to egregious fashion in combination with awkward social personality. He actually took me out shopping, and made me buy what he said to buy. I have to admit that it was an improvement, but most of it just wasn't really me. I have never really gotten over that traumatic experience, so perhaps I am overcompensating.

On 3/10/2024 at 5:27 PM, Clarity said:

 

I don't know if I would describe it as "encourage", but by now she has worked up a healthy amount of tolerance and I'm very grateful for it. 😇

Welcome to the forum! I'm in pretty much the same situation. My wife now tolerates me in heels almost everywhere, after many years. I think I just wore her down, eventually. However, if I were to get rid of all of them tomorrow, she would be happy.

Had I bothered to keep footwear that is no longer usable for its intended purpose, my "Heel Hill" would be quite extensive. I bet with a half hour's effort, I could make a pretty good estimate about how many pairs it's been.

I can't believe I'm posting in here yet again. The worst thing is, it won't be the last, I have a couple more pairs coming. Anyhow, these are my Steve Madden Varcityy purple suede pumps. I mentioned this elsewhere, but the camera doesn't see the color like I see it in real life. They sure look way pinker in these photos than I see them, but it doesn't much matter, I like them either way.

They are exactly the same as the black and tan shoes I wore a couple of weeks ago--4 5/8" heel that is plain plastic, i.e., not suede covered. Which is just fine by me, it's more resistant to damage that way. It is very skinny, at 1/4" wide. There was some wear on the heels, as if somebody actually wore these someplace in the past. I had to shoe stretcher them a bit to get them to be more comfortable, but not much. I think I'm getting a little bit better about managing such high heels. There were times when I actually felt sort of graceful. Maybe that's a good thing, since I have another pair just like it on the way in bright blue!

I have done something a little bit different this week. Or maybe something a little the same. It has been many years since I limited myself to blacks and browns in footwear, but I bought some purple shoes. They are not a traditional liturgical purple, and they certainly don't look purple in these pictures, but to my eye they are more purple than pink. The photos picked up on the pink tones, so maybe we'll call them magenta.

No reaction at church, but I got more reaction than I have in a long time at the grocery store. Several young girls were obviously watching me, and several adults noticed me as well. I don't know whether it was the general brightness of my outfit, or if those shoes are actually that outrageous. In any case, I have another pair just like it coming in bright blue soon.

I would second Cali's advice, except for one thing: I don't think you're going to find Bare Traps, BOC, Born, Söfft (they are all basically the same) in a size that large. The biggest I've actually seen in brands like that is 11 USW. You might be able to make that work in a sandal, but that would really be pushing it for a fully enclosed shoe like you apparently want.

Reheeled 6 times, eh? Given the wear I normally get out of stiletto heels, you've probably put more miles on those than any individual pair of stilettos I own. Until very recently, I don't do any serious walking in stilettos, for that very reason. I do need to keep better track of stuff that has yielded up the ghost, though. It has been several pairs a year, consistently.

22 hours ago, Puffer said:

Are you referring to the potential time that your employment might last, or to the remaining time during which you expect to remain on the planet and fit for work?   If the former, then (as Bubba says) you should not find it too hard to get alternative and suitably lucrative work.

 

It is the latter. Unless something radical happens, which is not beyond the realm of possibility, given the general gullibility of the American populace, I should have no problem keeping employment here in Iowa, as long as I can still climb a ladder.

4 hours ago, Tech said:

Ha ha ha, this really made me chuckle... Thank you... 😁

 

I sometimes don't understand why I am funny, even when I'm trying to be serious. Just the other day, I was talking with my immediate supervisors at work about the project our crew would be doing, and I made some remark like, "Yes, I agree, that is a very important consideration." Both of them busted up laughing. I have no idea why. Was it the delivery? Verbiage? Demeanor? No idea. But, in any case, you're welcome.

7 hours ago, Tech said:

Whats the difference between "Disagree" and "Disagree strongly"? Compared to say "I'n my experience, I've found that..."

You don't have any defects; you're just different. Either way, if you tucked in a plain T-Shirt, as tight as he did, with no belt, it would look dreadful.

The way I figure, agreement or disagreement is not like pregnancy, but rather there is a continuum. On the other end of the spectrum, I do not merely wishy-washily agree with your assertion about the belt, I agree strongly. A belt is key, both as a holder-upper device and as a line of visual demarcation.