mlroseplant

11 hours ago, Cali said:

She also wants me to get (front) lace up boots so I can control the pressure on my foot. I told her those are hard to find. She said "You right, I don't even have a pair myself."

So I'm on a lookout for some new front lace-up boots.

I was just thinking that all of my work boots except for one have been front lacing, so then I got to thinking what about the "work" boot style heels? I used to have a pair by Doc Marten. I can see where you'd have trouble finding a lot of this stuff in person in the shops, though. Sorry to hear about your ankles.

On 8/12/2019 at 1:02 AM, HappyinHeels said:

mlroseplant,

I remember your street well. That's cool you have a block party there. Whilst I can't verify if you have the nicest legs in the neighbourhood I can absolutely say when I saw you help your kid start a push mower wearing heels I was in awe. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY did it better. That's a permanent compliment you can use during the dry months when they are few and far between. HinH

I don't exactly remember the mower-starting incident, but I'm sure it happened. However, it happens less and less with each passing month, as my son keeps growing bigger and stronger, and rarely needs help starting anything nowadays. Thanks for the compliment anyway!

As far as having the best legs in the neighborhood, I suppose I should qualify that to say that at least the skin on my legs is the nicest looking, save for a couple of high school girls, and they really don't count, being evil Birkenstock wearers and all. My leg skin is nicer probably because I take care of it fastidiously, and also because it's probably seen way fewer hours of sun exposure than your average woman my age.

4 hours ago, kneehighs said:

West Des Moines?  Tasty Tacos?  Roosevelt High School?  Debate Team antics....you're striking close to HS home there.  Almost want to run and set up my virtual reality machine to Google Earth my way to Des Moines for the memories.

Yes, indeed! And all of those things still exist today, probably even the debate team antics.

And besides all that.  .  . United Breaks Guitars!

I got my gold Coach wedges glued back together, I'm thinking about taking them for a spin this afternoon. It's raining today, so rubber bottomed wedges would seem to be the thing. 

I am slightly younger vintage, but I remember this style being quite popular in the 70s, but with squareish toes, and lace up fronts. Some may have had a zipper, but some did not. I was very young at the time (elementary school age), but I remember elementary school girls wearing these boots, either in white patent or black patent. One of the girls was my next door neighbor. She let me try them on a couple of times. I had completely forgotten about that. Perhaps my desire for girly things started much younger than I remember! She was a year older than me, and I suppose I was about 8 years old at the time, and she was 9. We never could get both boots laced up all the way on me before her mother would knock on the door and say, "What on earth are you guys doing in there?"   I distinctly remember trying this at least twice. The girl's family moved away the very next year. Haha, good memory! The other thing I suddenly remember about this girl is that she had remarkably long fingernails for a 9 year old, which would have been the style at the time, but usually for much older girls.

They were most likely popular with older girls as well, but I certainly don't remember it. Here is an image I found of the boots I remember.

I am happy to see that my favorite modern classical pianist also likes the heels with shorts look. This is the latest promotional photo on her Facebook page.

On 8/10/2019 at 6:35 AM, HappyinHeels said:

mlroseplant,

One has to check thrift stores often as the merchandise changes faster then regular retail. As I've said before thrift stores save money but also one isn't contributing to landfill issues or the slave wages involved in so much of clothing manufacturing.

Heelster,

Plato's Closet is based in Wichita, Kansas and is like Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul in that it offers inexpensive merchandise donated by the public. Where it differs is that the merchandise was often sold to Plato's Closet for a small sum of money. Typically one takes in clothing or shoes and a machine grades the condition and one is paid accordingly. They typically take in clothing or shoes that are not far outside the fashion cycle. While they normally pay something like $5-10 for a pair of shoes and sell them for $12-20 it offers soe incentive for people to donate there. There's one near me and I've gone there a few times and come home with something a few times. Of course wearing heels into the store just adds to the experience at least for me. HappyinHeels

We have one a them Plato's Closet stores up in West Des Moines. I have idly driven by it a number of times, but I've never until now thought anything of it. I might have to check it out one of these days, now that I know what it is.

12 hours ago, SF said:

Well, not certain what if anything this post has to with with anything else, but since there hasn't been lot of activity here lately, I thought I would comment.  It's summertime which to me is sandal time!!  I mostly wear sandals almost exclusively gals, both with heels and flat.  This summer I have been out as much as possible in sandals, heels mostly, and have had absolutely no reaction at all - and that's a good thing - to me at least, except a compliment would be nice.  

The past few days I have been out in my favorite pair of VanEli kitten heeled sandals that I have had for a few years.  I love these shoes, they look nice and are relatively comfortable.  No reactions, maybe a few second looks but thats it.  Maybe more folks ARE getting acclimated to seeing a guy in heels?  Or just more accepting in general?  Or just not noticing and/or not caring?  I wore these sandals when me and Steve met in LA last November.  Both he and his wife liked them...  

Tonight the wife and I are off to the Greek Theater in LA to see Weird Al in concert.  I have seen him before, he's hilarious!  Gonna wear heels, just not sure which pair....  

Have fun all......   sf  

You got to see Weird Al? Cool! So there are at least two Weird Al fans on this site. By now, you made your decision about which shoes to wear, but if I'd have had a chance to vote, you already know which pair I'd choose. I always say, "Why wear shoes if you have the chance to wear sandals?"

15 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

Not sure which of these 3 is the best...

 

Or with a blazer, which is how I went out in the cool evening:

 

Number 2, for much the same reason(s) that kneehighs mentioned.

Mama has her good days and her bad days with my heels. Luckily, yesterday was a good day. Every year, our neighborhood has a block party, where they block vehicular access to the street for a few hours, set up tables, and everybody brings something to eat, potluck style. Even though we're not as neighborly a society as we used to be, it's good to actually know and meet the people living around you every once in a while.

I wore heels, as I have for several years to this event, and shorts. I made sure to find my 4 inch inseam shorts, since there would be quite a bit of sitting down with lots of other people around. I tried to make the rounds and introduce myself to any newcomers or people I don't see but once a year. Nobody even looked at me funny, or if they did, they were rather more discreet about it than some people are. Therefore, Mama was happy. Mama was also happy because people ate every bit of the food she brought to share.

I have also come to the conclusion that, short as they are, I have the best legs in the neighborhood, if you don't count the girls under the age of 25. It is unfortunate that they have taken kind of a beating this summer, mostly due to my carelessness. Mama, of course, does not agree, and says I have very funny looking legs. The subject was dropped.

19 hours ago, SF said:

Wow...... Based on earlier posts, I thought your spouse was generally OK with your heeling?  A freak?  Not sure about that.  Different, maybe.  Let's face it, not a lot of guys wear high heels in public.  We are the pioneers who are taking the arrows.  Will things ever get better?  I doubt it, at least not in my lifetime.  But that does not mean I will stop enjoying my heels and I imagine you are of the same opinion.  

Next time I am driving through Iowa, I will get the name of your town so they can be amazed that there are now two "freaks" in town...  ha ha...

Like the Bobby McFerrin song says:  Don't Worry Be Happy......       Have fun, sf (the other "freak")    

 

My wife is accepting of my heeling, 98% of the time. That doesn't mean she likes it. In fact, she hates it, and if I threw all my heels away she would be super happy, and she's told me so. However, after 7 years, I guess I've just worn her down, and she doesn't say anything anymore, unless there's a reason, like we're going to go meet her coworkers and she doesn't really want to have to do a lot of explaining for very little gain, or none in her eyes.

As far as being a freak, I am the most normal freak you'll ever meet, bordering on being flat-out boring.

12 hours ago, Puffer said:

Sounds like my wife, whose disapproval of almost anything I do (shoe-related or not) transmits itself by telepathy through both time and space.   (In fact, I detect her two storeys down telling me that I am a pervert right now.)

Puffer, I hope you are exaggerating slightly for the sake of humor. However, it was pointed out to me recently by my 10 year old, "Mama sure does yell at us a lot." Perhaps the recent purchase of THIS musical instrument has exacerbated things. My son is just starting his brasswind journey, and I, after a 28 year hiatus, am trying to return to my former glory as the bass of the brass band. So that thing gets played at least an hour a day between the two of us. It drives Mama crazy. Perhaps she is a saint, after all.

19 hours ago, SF said:

 You mentioned “negative feedback” this month, what happened??

Nothing earthshaking, but I have gotten way more than the usual number of disapproving stares, open giggling, and in one case, some girls who felt the need to walk by our house three times with their dog to have one more laugh at me. I guess the thing that really got to me was when one of the incidents happened in front of my wife, who is always telling me that pretty much the whole town thinks I'm a freak, and that she's a freak for being married to me. She didn't say anything at the time, but she thought it pretty loudly! Of course, her impression is usually hyperbolic toward the negative side of things, but you couldn't argue with her on this particular day.

On the other hand, I think that perhaps I've finally learned how to walk in heels after 7 years. I caught a glimpse of myself head on in a store's front glass, and for the first time didn't cringe at the sight.

After I got home from Walgreens, I thought something felt kind of funny. At least nothing is actually broken, it just needs to be glued back down. It seems I am constantly repairing this and that on my shoes, and I don't think I'm very hard on shoes, compared to most.

Nothing much to report lately, except I did get a much needed compliment yesterday. I was in my local Walgreens getting some BIG Band-Aids (sticking plasters), as my son had had a mishap with his knee, and six regular sized Band-Aids weren't cutting it. I was wearing my cutoff shorts, which I may have mentioned somewhere are actually about an inch TOO short to be practical, but they're fine if you never sit down anywhere. Anyhow, they're stylish enough I guess, without being this ripped or distressed business that every girl seems to be wearing nowadays. Oh, also, I was wearing my gold patchwork Coach mules with dark brown 4 1/4" wedge heel. A lady I would guess to be about my age followed me up to the checkout area and remarked that I had prettier legs than she did. As she was wearing long pants, I cannot say whether that was true or not, but in any case she was slim and reasonably attractive. I kind of chuckled in the way that I do when I'm caught off guard, and thanked her. Then we talked about kids and skinned knees with the cashier, I wished them a good evening, and I was on my way home to apply said Band-Aids. It's been kind of a rough month for negative feedback, so it was nice to get some positive, and she seemed like she was being sincere. I did not detect any trace of sardonic tone in her voice.

On 8/1/2019 at 6:31 AM, SF said:

Computers are going to kill us all...  I find most technology very confusing, fruststating and a waste of time...  I’d rather mow the lawn or take a nice walk (in heels of course) on a beautiful summer eve...  And then there’s the hackers and identity theft....

I know, I am a dinosaur.....

Have fun....

sf

I sort of feel that way, but am more or less constantly being dragged into learning how to do more and more stuff electronically.

23 hours ago, P08C said:

nobody should feel like an outcast, so i'll rephrase what i said...

 

Have any of you ever heard of Paul Duane? He's this really cool guy from Salt Lake City that wears heels with shorts on a regular basis.  He makes the look seem so effortless and clean. I love his style. 

 

How's that?

I guess that style works for him, but I don't think it could work for me. Where would I ever wear such a thing? I'm glad he's out there doing his thing, but it's not for me.

21 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

I've seen him, got style and openly wears heels. He's a low budget film maker or producer. Lot's of images on google.

There are evidently two Paul Duanes. One is a filmmaker, one is a political blogger. Only one of them, by my reckoning, wears high heels.

7 minutes ago, P08C said:

I don't know, I made the assumption because I am in a forum full of men who wear high heels. I figured, like me, a lot of you have searched for "men who wear high heels" on the internet. He is a very popular man who wears high heels. Sorry for being so bold to make that assumption, i'll keep my assumptions in check next time @mlroseplant. I didn't realize such an assumption would arouse your flippancy. 

Maybe it is I who is the outcast here, because I have never done a search for "men who wear high heels." If I stop and think about it, I'm probably not in the majority there. The reason why I said what I did in the first place was simply by looking up Duane's youtube channel, and noting that the views were typically in the hundreds, which is about like all of my youtube videos, and no one's ever heard of me!

On 8/1/2019 at 2:35 AM, P08C said:

I loved the nude Sam Edelman Hazel pumps so much I also bought them in red. I also picked up a pair of Michael Kors open toed booties that are super fun and really comfortable. I hope you enjopy the outfits. I realized most of the outfits I posted were pretty formal/dressy, like something you'd wear to the office. So with the Michael Kors booties I tried to dress them down a bit into a fun casual outfit.

I don't really think any of the outfits that you have posted so far are formal or dressy, but they do look put together, and I think that's the most important thing. It looks like you meant to wear heels with the outfit, rather than looking like you slipped into the wrong shoes by mistake at the door. I feel like you have to make some sort of effort to look halfway put together if you're going to wear heels, and not look completely ridiculous. If I've been doing a project, either house or car, and I need to run somewhere real quick, I won't wear heels to go do it. Keep up the good work!

1 hour ago, P08C said:

I'm sure most of you know who Paul Duane is. He makes the heels with shorts look so effortless and clean. I love his style. 

I don't mean to be flippant, but I have no idea why you would think that most of us know who Paul Duane is. Of course, we have all Googled him by now, and wondered even more why you would think that any of us know who Paul Duane is. He's got decent legs, I'll give him that.

23 hours ago, P08C said:

Speaking of going out. I'm not too particularly fond of going out by myself without the moral support of my wife, but she'll be out of town for a month soon. So, my goal over the next month is to find comfort in being alone and trying some solo outings. Still not sure where to go or what to do, but it'll be an adventure nonetheless.

I can understand that feeling--it is somehow easier when you have someone else with you. I found it easier in many ways to go out in heels when I was with my wife or my young son. This is in spite of the fact that my wife doesn't really like my heels.

As far as finding someplace to go, it doesn't have to be an adventure. Just go to the grocery store or the gas station or the post office or wherever you would normally go in a day. When you make it an "outing," then it becomes a bigger deal than it really is. I've seen several suggest that you go to a coffee shop. That's a great idea, except for one problem--so you walk into a coffee shop, order your stuff, then go and sit down, maybe for quite some time. Then you get up, walk back outside to the car, and go home.  Now you've taken an hour, and you only got to walk maybe 100 yards total. Maybe I'm just strange, but if I'm going to bother to pick out and put on heels for some "outing," by golly, I'm going to walk somewhere. That's why shopping malls are the best short-time commitment place to go. Lots of walking.

On 7/26/2019 at 1:23 PM, Peeptoe said:

My 3 inch heels while still technically stilettos do have "beefier" heels than my 4 inch heels. 

There is some law of physics, perhaps Young's Modulus or something like that, I can't recall, which says that all other things being equal, the shorter something is, the stiffer it is. Think of a plastic ruler. At its full length, say approximately 12 inches or 30 centimeters, it is very easy to bend. Break the ruler in half, and it is much more difficult to bend. Break it in half again, and it's quite difficult to bend. Same ruler, same materials, different lengths. I would think that 3 inch heels or shorter would not be flexing much, no matter how cheaply made. They might break for other reasons, however, as stiffness has little to do with strength. To paraphrase from some long ago forgotten textbook, "A soda cracker is stiff and weak, steel is stiff and strong, nylon is flexible and strong, raspberry jelly is flexible and weak."

Oh yes, this subject has probably been beaten to death, or so we thought, but perhaps it wasn't meant to die. I know it continues to be a curiosity in my life, and has resurfaced yet again this summer. It is not a question of whether people notice, but what percentage notice enough for it to really register what they've just seen. I would guess that the percentage is low, but when you're walking in public, it doesn't take a very high percentage to feel like you're in the spotlight.

When I first started heeling, some 7+ years ago, my formula was fairly straightforward--conservative, un-flashy clogs or boots, usually black, and boot cut jeans hemmed 1/2" off the floor. I was noticed by a certain percentage of people. Part of my reasoning was to cover the heels, but part of it was that it seemed to be a stylish look, or at least it was at one time. A few years later, I started wearing slimmer cut (not quite "skinny," but close) jeans with my heels, and the heels became higher, thinner, and more open. This change didn't seem to affect the percentage of people who noticed, or at least who reacted visibly. Fast forward another couple years, and I began wearing shorts with heels. With this combo, the percentage of people who reacted went up significantly, and continues to be high to this day. In fact, I've had the most negative reaction in the past month that I've had for some time. It's kind of a bummer.

I think people in general are shocked by the shorts more than the heels, and that's partially due to the fact that men's shorts have gotten ridiculous sometime in the last 20 years. Certainly the shorts with the heels doubles the attention. With more attention, there's bound to be more negative reaction. To be fair, shorts with heels is going to attract attention no matter what, unless you're at a place where many people are wearing such clothes. I would be willing to venture that if I were a woman, and wore what I normally wear into the supermarket, that there would be at least as many eyes on me (for different reasons) as there are right now.

It would be nice to just be left the hell alone, but that ain't gonna happen, so I might as well wear what I like. If I wanted to just wear heels of any sort and attract the least amount of attention, I'd wear long pants with block heeled boots all the time. People seem to be remarkably cool with that on a guy, at least around here.

I'd be curious to know whether you're having this problem with every single four inch heel you've tried, or is it multiple pairs of a certain style? Does the problem start immediately, or does it get worse as you walk a few miles? You are running into one of the frustrations of our trade--that is, we actually walk in shoes that really aren't meant to be walked in. I wish I could say that there was a formula for finding high heels that are durably built. Price often seems to make no difference as far as durability. Comfort? Yes, price often seems to make a difference, but I have had some pretty expensive shoes fail infuriatingly soon because they weren't durably built.

I have had a few loose or wobbly heels over the years, but the most frustrating thing I've run into is flimsy shanks. The shank is a piece of spring metal that runs between the insole and outsole from the heel of the shoe up to somewhere past the ball of the foot. It basically lends stiffness to the part of the sole which doesn't touch the ground. Without it, your heels will wobble all over the place even though they are tightly attached. I've broken three of these, they've all been somewhat chunky heels, and they've been on moderately priced (like Nine West) to pretty expensive (like Vera Wang). When this happens, you basically just throw them away. For comparison, I weigh 140 pounds, and I think I walk fairly lightly.

We really need more information about what is happening with your shoes, then maybe we can figure out something.

20 hours ago, SF said:

mlrose....  I also love the thong styles..  Very pretty (can a guy wear pretty shoes?) sandal...  Most of my heels are the thong style.  Good luck on your search.  sf

I suppose a guy can wear "pretty" shoes, as well as "cute" shoes, but there are some places I still won't go. Anything adorned with flowers, for example.