mlroseplant

On 5/8/2021 at 12:24 PM, maninpumps said:

Are they faux wood or real wood ? They look awesome and I like the bow . Great find !

Real wood! I have several pairs of real wooden heels, and I rather like them. The only downside is that real wood ones to have a great tendency to be really, really loud. The composite fake wood ones tend to be much quieter. I don't mind being a little loud, but there's a fine line between happy clacking and obnoxious.

14 hours ago, RonC said:

Personally, I can't even imagine trying to walk in those.  Yes, I would try them around the house and probably enjoy the experience, but I doubt I would ever adventure out in them.  Way beyond my capabilities.  But then, I am not the high heel pro you are ml.  You can blow away probably 90% of the female population when it comes to walking in heels.

Hold on there, Ron! I think you are giving more credit than what is due! I didn't actually say that I could actually walk in them, I just said that they were somewhat easier than my other D&G. I don't think either pair is going to get a trip to the grocery store anytime soon.

14 hours ago, RonC said:

Certainly these heels are much nicer than the low blocky stuff, but not a fan of the platform part.  I'm with you on this style.  I can't explain why, but I just do not like the back part of this style.  It seems to rarely fit snugly to the ankle which leaves an ugly gap in the back.  I'd much rather see a traditional ankle strap style than this fugly partial heel design.

I see no reason to criticize your niece in this photo.  Looks like a lovely young lady!

Fitment seems to be a big problem with this style. Probably lack of experience, mainly. Because you know, it's a sandal! It's not going to fit the same in about half an hour as it did in the store.

We may not love this style, but it's very similar, at least in the back, to almost literally every single Latin dance shoe ever made, and there's nothing wrong with Latin dance shoes. Go figure.

12 hours ago, Puffer said:

Aren't the shoes (sandals) worn by Melrose's niece almost the same style (with a closed back) as those illustrated by Ron C, apart from having a higher and slimmer heel?

But, that aside, I much prefer a 'barely there' style with an open slingback and preferably no ankle strap.   Less is more - except of course in terms of heel height!   Here is an example:

Yes, Ron's example and mine are very similar. Perhaps I did not make it very clear that the picture of my niece is probably from, oh, at least 2015, and it might be older than that. I can remember when this style of sandal became all the rage in Asia, so my point was that this may be what the girls are wearing now, but the style has been around for quite some time. My niece is now 28 years old, and I seriously doubt she wears heels at all anymore. When she was a teenager, she was like the high heel queen. Those Jimmy Choos are very sleek, indeed!

This was one of those times when I was innocently browsing ebay and happened to run across something that struck my fancy, and I said to myself, "Yeah, I'm probably going to have to have those." As I have become more financially stable over the years, this sort of thing happens a lot more often. Just a few short years ago, I wouldn't have even clicked on these because of their expense ($109 plus shipping), but as you people know, I have sort of a weakness for this wooden heeled style. I'm not really crazy about the bows, but it's impossible to remove them without completely destroying the vamp because of the way they are attached.

Dolce & Gabbana open toed mules, 5 inch heel, 1 inch platform, size 39. They fit perfectly, and for some reason are much easier to walk in than my other pair of D&G mules of similar design and dimensions. One of the mysteries of life. I will also add that these shoes are obnoxiously loud on pavement. Not nearly as obnoxious as a straight-piped Harley, though. At least you can still have a conversation while walking in these shoes.

14 hours ago, RonC said:

I agree with you on that one.  Big difference between "could still" and just don't bother.  

I was on vacation last week and stopped in the town where Western Kentucky University is located.  We went out for dinner Sunday evening and when we came out, there was a group of 20 or so young ladies waiting to get in to the restaurant.  I guessed that it was some kind of sorority get together as it was graduation weekend in town.  All of the girls were nicely dressed, mostly in dresses.  But of course what I noticed was their footwear.  I would say maybe a third of them were wearing flip flops or perhaps a low wedge sandal, with the rest wearing the exact same shoe style, almost like it was a uniform.  Block heel on all, no thin heels at all, with 90% being in the 2-2.5 inch range, with a couple of maybe 3-3.5 inches.  This is the style, though I'd guess that most were actually a bit lower and blockier in the heel::

 

Personally, I've never found this style to be particularly attractive to begin with.  But there are many available with a stiletto heel that can look decent.  But not one of them had a thin heel, and I just couldn't believe that they all had the same style.  Doesn't give me a lot of hope for heels for the young ladies.  The other thing I noticed (my wife was having a smoke before she got in the car so I had some time to sit and observe) was the length of their dresses.  I have to say there were a few that I would consider ridiculously short.  If they would have bent over in any way their undies would have been showing,  I enjoy the feminine leg probably a good deal more than the average guy, but a few were what to me was a bit too short.  Yeah, yeah, I know I'm old...lol.  

This one's been around a while, in different iterations. I don't like it because it covers up the back of the foot, and why would you ever want to do that? Haha. Do you like THIS version of those heels rather better? Why? Compare and contrast. This is my niece, by the way, from several years ago. Feel free to criticize her as you see fit. I know I do!

13 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

Herd mentality!  The age of individuality is over.  Blessed be those that follow the crowd for they will inherit the herd’s shallowness!

To continue in that theme, there is nothing new under the sun. The age of individuality never existed. Those who are innovators are generally lonesome. You oughta know that, being as you're one of us!

On 5/15/2019 at 11:03 AM, p1ng74 said:

I really like the shadows cast by heels when the sun is low.  I know others here like it too, so let’s see your shadows!  

I guess I never even noticed this post, what..., 2 years ago? I promise I will contribute just as soon as I am able, and the clouds cooperate. Or perhaps I can use the streetlamps if necessary. However, even in our small town we've gotten rid of the high pressure sodium lamps in favor of LEDs. I do kind of miss the yellowish, crappy light of high pressure sodium, though. Plus, they didn't blind you when you looked up at them. No technology is perfect.

I used to say that I don't have any short range shoes, and once upon a time that was true. Today, I have shoes that I actually wear, which is 95% of them, and then I have "aspirational" shoes, which I sometimes practice with, not to be seen by the public. My usual rule is that if I can't walk 2 miles (3.2 km) in reasonable comfort, then those shoes are not for me. I still pretty much stick to that rule.

I did something last weekend that I haven't done in over a year. I attended a backyard barbecue. Well, we're all vaccinated now, so what the hell, why not? Other than breaking my phone while playing frisbee with the kids, a good time was had by all. The host of this event is a relatively new homeowner, and although I helped him move out of his apartment and into this house about a year ago, we'd never really had an "event" there until now.

As it turns out, this fellow's sister was there as well (just for context, we're all somewhere around 50 years old, more or less), and the subject came up, "How many shoes do you own?" I was put to shame because this gal claimed 150. To be fair, it sounds like few, or perhaps none of them are heels, but it did give me the opportunity to demonstrate, right there in front of God and everybody, how to walk in high heels, and how NOT to. And then I got the, "Oh, I wish I could still wear heels" line. I am convinced that most women in this country have either had foot surgery or had some kind of accident, because I've heard that line so often now that maybe I don't much believe it anymore. But perhaps that is another subject for another time.

On 5/1/2021 at 5:34 AM, Isolathor said:

I would prefer a thinner heel, but my wife loves these boots and can wear them for a whole day.

 

I used to have a pair of Nine West boots with a heel very similar to that. I appreciated them for their looks as well as their relative utility. Unfortunately, they kind of self-destructed, even after repeated attempts to repair them. Some things were just not meant to be.

On 4/28/2021 at 9:32 PM, Bubba136 said:

Such undertakings (long walks and long periods of standing) emphasize the importance of having and wearing well made and properly fitting shoes.  You can’t achieve walking long distances or wear bad fitting footwear if you are contemplating spending a lot of time standing comfortably in high heels.  A lesson that I learned from my mother. 

Ain't that the truth! And even then, sometimes your best friends will come back and bite you. It just happened to me last week. Shoes I've owned and loved for years wore a hole in the side of my foot. It was very disappointing.

My mother also loved heels in her younger days, but was never a regular, all day wearer. So my lessons were learned either on my own or from Jenny's old website.

12 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

Funny that you should mention DebbyHk.  I was going through a bunch of old computer disks a came across several where I had saved many pictures of her wearing extreme heels.  She was a real person.  Over the span of our correspondence, I purchased and sent several pairs of “Wild Pair” heels that she wore and sent back pictures of her wearing them to me.  I still have her logo and would post it here if I could figure out how to do that.  Last I heard from her was that she and her husband  were having difficulties.  I tried to telephone her several times after that but she never responded.  Jenny’s chat website was really great.  Made a lot of friends that I often think about. Remember Jane from Australia?

I remember Jane, but I never chatted with her. The main person I remember in chat (besides you) was a woman named Stephanie. By the time I was around, Jenny herself did not show up to chat very often. In any case, I did not forge any personal relationships with anybody from there--it would not have occurred to me to do so in the first place, and my (now) ex-wife would have had a cow in the second place. I am not really sure why I was ever on there at all, since I was not a heel wearer at the time. I guess I was trying to live vicariously through people who actually did wear heels, as I never thought it was possible to wear them myself and have any sort of normal life. I do remember people being very nice to me in the chat room, despite the fact that I must have seemed a bit of a voyeur.

It was also Jenny (and Debbie) who gave me the idea that perhaps one actually could hack wearing very high heels very regularly and actually enjoy it, and actually be able to walk more than 100 yards without worrying about her shoes. My ex-wife was having none of that. While she did wear heels almost every working day, they were always 2 -2 1/2" block heeled pumps. She felt that anything higher than that was "unprofessional." And impossible to wear all day, every day. She would wear higher for special occasions, but she couldn't hack them for more than an hour or two, and refused to entertain any notion that it was possible to condition oneself to actually wear these extreme 3 1/2" heels, or if she ever secretly did, felt it was a waste of time.

I mention all of these things to stroll down Memory Lane for a minute, but also because I remember there was a section on Jenny's website about conditioning and training. I seem to recall (perhaps wrongly) that it was quite extensive, and involved a lot of walking in heels, something I did not think was possible at the time. I would very much like to read that section again, just for the fun of it. Do you have any sections of Jenny's old website archived in some way, by any chance?

On edit: I'm stepping pretty hard on your thread, @Isolathor. Sorry about that. I hope you don't mind too much.

20 hours ago, Isolathor said:

I don´t know Your size, but the pictured heels are a european 42 with a heel of just above 15cm. She has very similar heels (same colour, same leather, same style) with heels of 12cm, and she prefers the shorter heels a lot. If desired i can picture that.

I am size 40, so my guess was really, really close!

On 4/15/2021 at 12:11 AM, Pierre1961 said:

The perfect classic court shoes. Very high but not stupidly high. So probably very walkable for someone who have the skill. 

To my eye, those look about right. In my size, I suppose they would be about 5 1/2", or 14 cm. Way beyond my abilities, but they look about right to me.

On 4/15/2021 at 10:29 AM, RonC said:

Just my opinion, but I think those qualify as stupidly high.  I have a feeling that those would cause foot issues if worn on a regular basis.

A long, long time ago, but judging from your join date maybe not before your memory, there used to be this gal on Jenny's old site called Debbie from Hong Kong, or DebbieHK, or something like this. Supposedly, she could hack wearing shoes like that every day, and there were others too, back when this site used to have women on it. However, as you well know, over the years there have been quite a number of members who turned out to be completely fictional, and for reasons I can't fathom. Why would you ever do that? Anyway, it's really hard sometimes to separate fact from fiction. I agree that for 99.99% of people, those qualify as stupidly high, and that solidly includes me.

I see that one of their main targets for expansion is Asia. Although I have often touted the frequency of heel wearing in Asia, the awfulness of the opposite side of the footwear spectrum is much, much worse than anything we have here in the U.S. I am thinking of any number of awful rubber sandals that are really designed to be house slippers, and probably for guests at that, but people wind up wearing them on the street all the time. In this case Crocs would actually be an improvement, or at least merely a step sideways.

I do admit to having tried on a pair and walked a few steps in them, just to see what the hell people were raving about. I've got the exact same problem with them that I do with Doc Martins, and I'm not talking about hideous appearance: They are simply way too squidgy. I don't want to bounce when I walk, I am plenty bouncy enough on my own, thank you.

On 4/25/2021 at 3:44 PM, RonC said:

I don't think I could walk five miles any longer period, much less in heels such as those.  Impressive!

It wasn't something that you just do on a whim. If you scroll back a few pages, you can see that the first couple of weeks of March I was complaining about not being able to do more than a mile without my ankle complaining. In the weeks after that, I logged a lot of 2-3 mile walks. Oddly enough, on the morning of the 5 miler, I was actually a little nervous for reasons I can't explain. Perhaps it was the memory of the last time I attempted a 5 miler when my shoe failed me two miles from home. No such drama this time.

On 4/23/2021 at 4:39 PM, Cali said:

Today was a errand day.

I got my Charles David wedges in the mail last (see below) from DSW, but they didn't fit so I decided to take them back in person and see what was happening at the local DSW.  The woman who took them back asked what was wrong them and I told her they just didn't fit.  Her said " too bad because they are really cute." They were a cute snake print but as I always say, "life's too short for heels that hurt."

After returning the heels I took a walk around the store to see (and try-on) at what they had on their floor.  This DSW has about 60+ aisles of shoes, typical 36+ aisles are women's.  Today there was only about 32 aisles of women's shoes, 15 aisles devoted to athletic or sneakers. Another two aisle were flat sandals. Only two aisles with real heels. Sad state of shoes. I tried on several pairs but nothing fit.

After another stop, I ventured to my local boutique. They know what I like and when I entered the empty store the manager told be they had gotten anything in my height in the last month. She also said that they can't keep sneakers in stock. Again too bad.  But just outside the store, I did see a woman walk past me in 4 inch block heels. 

The next stop was costco and in the store I saw a women in red velvet knee high boots with a slim 4 inch block heels.

I can't think of the last time I bought sneakers. I know I've been wearing the same pair for going on 10 years now, and it looks like it. I did buy a couple of pairs of those Nike Sky Highs back in 2016. I bought them for a very specific purpose, and the purpose no longer exists. Nevertheless, I should attempt to bring them back into service. There is nothing wrong with them, I just don't really like them, mainly because they're high top.

I have also seen a very few heels around town lately, but I don't go anywhere near  a business district during business hours, so the heels I see are worn casually at Costco or wherever. Wedges and chunkier heels are all I've seen so far this year. However, *I* did wear stilettos to Costco last week, so maybe that counts for something!

18 hours ago, KneeBooted said:

I’ll chime in here since no one has said they’d prefer a pair of boots yet.

Growing up, the iconic style I remember was that of a black leather knee high boot with a chunky heel, rounded toe, and no platform.

For some reason, that always stuck in my head as the must-have style. I don’t know that I saw them everywhere, but a handful of people I can recall had them, including my mom.

That being said, if I had to pick one pair and one pair only, I’d probably continue that idea with a black leather knee high boot. And since it’s our fantasy, I’d love to have feet that fit into Christian Louboutin boots for that matter! 

However, I don’t know that I’d keep the round toe and chunky heel. While that does make it easier to walk in and more comfy on my feet, I’d probably want to succeed in wearing pointy toe stiletto. Something like the Eloise boot they have now, which is a textured black leather and looks amazing.

 

16 hours ago, pebblesf said:

I'll chime in and agree totally.  I prefer classic stiletto boots also, with no platform...Those boots look great and are amazingly easy to walk in for sure....I love wearing my Sam Edelman stiletto boots, they look similar to these...My only issue is wearing out the heel tips quickly, I need to learn how to replace them myself...

Believe it or don't, I can actually get behind those boots 100%. Those are pretty hot! I mean, for something that covers up your foot that much.

I have long quit wearing stilettos for actual walking just because the heels wear out so quickly. I know, I know, I can hear @Jkrenzer muttering to himself from 1,000 miles away, "That stupid son of a b**** has STILL not learned how to replace his own heels." It's true. I can't argue with that.

6 hours ago, hh_pe said:

No, I will not buy another pair.

I haven't had the opportunity to look into where the break occurred on the shank.

 

For me, it is a fetish thing.  Always liked seeing women walk in them and simple wanted to try and see what it was like.  As I said above, I'm glad I got the chance to try.

I don't have the fetish aspect for these style of shoes, but I do find all of this very interesting. First, it looks like the actual heel broke in half, not the shank. I could almost understand if the shank broke--I've had several shanks fail on me over the years.

The second thing I find interesting, and is really the only reason I'm replying to this at all is this idea that "I wanted to see what it was like." I can remember back in my youth when most girls and women wore high heels for dressy occasions, and most of them wobbled a bit in their stilettos. Of course, stilettos were very much in style in the 1980s, but very few could actually walk well in them, as I recall. Every once in a while, though,  you'd see a gal who walked rock steady and almost carelessly, as if it were nothing. That is what I always found attractive, and made me wonder from an early age, "Hmmm, I wonder how hard that really is?" Of course, 40 years later, and 9 years into heel wearing, what I have discovered is, it's simultaneously easier AND harder than I thought it would be.

On 4/23/2021 at 2:41 PM, RonC said:

Seeing as how any heel I wear seems to hurt these days, that leaves me to choose by looks I guess....lol.

I would think the "perfect" shoes would need to be one that more than satisfies in both looks and performs.  For folks like @mlroseplant and @Jkrenzer that wear their heels all the time, I would think that performance plays a role at least equivalent to looks.  For me, given how rarely I actually get to wear my heels, I lean toward looks, though I will admit to trying to find something that I can wear more comfortably even if it means giving up a fair piece in terms of look.  Haven't found anything yet that is comfortable yet satisfies my need for the right look.  A while back I bought a pair of Clarks pumps like these.

Basic, not much to look at, practical heel height, considered to be a "comfort" shoe.  Something I thought I could wear and walk in in public.  Thought if I got an 11 wide they would work well.  Tried them on and proceeded to walk out of the left shoe, and while the right shoe seemed to fit nicely, standing in them for just a few minutes made my feet hurt.  So even when I choose performance over looks I can seem to win!

I've been involuntarily participating in this thought exercise for the last couple of days, and if I had only one pair of shoes to wear for the rest of my life, it would probably be something rather close to your Clarks. Except I would probably choose something that same shape and heel height but in an oxford style shoe, since I've got the same problem you have with walking out of pumps. I'm pretty sure I could wear that style in pretty much every situation if I had to, even at work if they would let me.

On the other hand, if we let ourselves slip into fantasy land, I would prefer something like these Maison Ernest mules. I frankly don't know if I could even walk in these, but it's what I'd like to wear all the time if I had the chance. In any case, you have to love the ankle flexibility of the model in this picture!

Funny this thread should pop back up again at this moment. I will be attending my 35th high school class reunion this summer, if there even is one, who knows what will happen. I do not have fond memories of my younger days, but those who grew up around me seem to remember me more fondly than I remember them. If only I had known how life was going to go, hell, I could have been wearing heels from age 18 and not have wasted 30 some-odd-years walking around in flats. AND, I probably could have avoided my ex-wife altogether!

For those who may be wondering, it is recorded somewhere that I did in fact wear heels to my 30th high school reunion. I was the best dressed person there, but probably not the cutest.  .  .

It is fast coming up on my 9th anniversary of public heel wearing. I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was sometime in the first part of May 2012. In the year after that, I spent a lot of time pounding the pavement at night (not a practice I recommend for everyone) learning how to walk in heels. In retrospect, it has taken me nearly 9 years to really accomplish this, and evidently I still have my limits.

In an attempt to raise those limits, I decided this morning to walk 5 miles in heels, or 8 km. It is not the first time I have done this, in fact it's the third time, but it's been quite a while. It was thoroughly enjoyable, except for the last mile, but that was only because I had to pee so badly that it ruined the whole experience. I did make it home without any "accidents," even at my advanced age. If I ever do this in the morning again, I will delay my coffee until after I am back home.

I finished my long walk with no ill effects, and if I can find the time slot to do so, I hope to repeat this activity again soon. Pictured below are the shoes I wore on the walk, drying out on my Peet shoe dryer, which is normally reserved for work boots and such.

It goes without saying that my perfect shoe is not a classic pump. Not that there's anything wrong with classic pumps, but everyone knows I have to have a sandal, and most probably a mule. More than 50% of my shoe collection consists of mules, so if I had only one pair, it would probably be mules. Having said that, there is more than one way to interpret the original question. Perfect shoe theoretically, or practically? Is perfection based on just the way it looks, or how it performs in the real world? That might change my answer a bit, depending on the situation.

12 hours ago, Cali said:

I don't criticize other's choice in shoes, with one exception: crocs.

I can't even go that far, because I only know two adult guys who wear crocs. One of them is my father, and the other is a close friend. Both of them accept my footwear without so much as the blink of an eye. So I can't say anything, can I? But I can think it pretty loudly.

18 hours ago, Pierre1961 said:

Yes. Good question. But I wonder if they would accept.They give the upmost care  to their feet. Which nevertheless get destroyed on the long run . No need to add any painful activity  

On the other hand Alexandra Potter is or was a ballet dancer. So......?

I have noticed over the years that one of the keys to a successful walk in very high heels is good ankle flexibility. Without it, one cannot keep the knee straight as the weight shifts to the forward foot. So here's the thing: Every bit of advice I've ever heard about wearing ballet boots claims that you have to lace those things tighter than tight to make it all work correctly and comfortably. Comfort being a relative term. These two objectives appear to be in direct conflict with each other. @Rockpup, since you are actually pretty good at this, what are your thoughts? Or anybody else with the relevant experience.

On 4/18/2021 at 4:21 PM, hh_pe said:

On Friday while I attempted to practice walking in my ballet heels, I miss stepped as I was hobbling and broke the shank of the heel.   Disappointed I didn't get better at walking but happy I had the chance to try these.

I must confess, I have never seen a heel break quite like that before. It's quite remarkable that the heel appears to be still firmly attached to the rest of the shoe, and yet is completely destroyed in the middle. Do you think it's defective? And while ballet boots are not my thing, I am curious to know, will you buy another pair?

5 hours ago, Pierre1961 said:

Totally absurd. And ugly to look at people walking in ( can we call it a walk?) 

One exception. Alexandra Potter. 

Even Pantera wasn’t at her best in ballet boots. And we all agree she was walking perfectly in 6” 

it could be understandable if it was a good training for a better walk in normal heels. But it’s even not.

It is funny about that, even people who are pretty good at it usually don't look that great by normal standards of grace. However, there are any number of videos out there on Instragram et al. of actual ballerinas walking in toe shoes, and their walks are all amazing without fail. This makes me wonder how an accomplished ballet dancer would do in these shoes.

21 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Get repetitive pain chopping up so much? I once diced up enough pears to prepare 4 - 6 gallon wine mashes. Pears are as hard as apples at that stage. Though my elbow and wrist were finished after that.

Luckily, the equipment she currently has limits the amount of carrots that need to be peeled at one time to around 15 lbs. Depending on the recipe (she makes about a half dozen different varieties, plus crab rangoons), that will go with several pounds of onions and about 8 heads of cabbage. This is not really enough at once to cause much in the way of repetitive stress injuries, but trying to get the water out of the cabbage is another story. We used to do it simply by squeezing it manually. This worked fine when she was making them for our personal consumption, but became unacceptable when she started selling several dozen a week. After much experimentation, the solution turned out to be one of those swimsuit dryer things that spin around very rapidly. It works unbelievably well, and it doesn't hurt your hands at all!

Turning back to the subject of chopping stuff up on a countertop, I don't like to wear much of a heel if I have a lot of things to prepare, because it puts me at an uncomfortable height ergonomically. I can see why actual tall people sometimes have their kitchen counters made higher than standard, if they plan to stay in that house for a very long time. Of course when preparing normal supper or whatever, it doesn't matter much, and I normally wear short heels in the kitchen. The one exception is kneading bread dough. In that case, it's an advantage to wear very high heels to get a better angle for mashing.

12 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

Carrots?  Better than onions!

I did onions too, and that's ok. As long as I never have to chop cabbage ever again. For some reason I hate that particular operation, and besides that, I evidently can't do it right anyhow. I suppose there is sometimes value in being incompetent. In much the same way that you never, EVER want to admit to anybody that you know how to finish concrete.

The Big farmer's market starts May 6. My wife, bless her heart, is shooting for the stars with sales expectations. She has rolled over 3,000 egg rolls in the past 10 days or so, and that number continues to climb, until we run out of space in our 3 (!) deep freezers. Here is one about 2/3 of the way full.