Shyheels

Yes I’m fortunate in that regard in having a nice pair of Italian Heels knee boots (their Tina model) in 12cm stiletto heels, scaled up to my size. They fit well and are well made. I think it would be quite difficult to try to master 12cm stilettos that were poorly made. It’s hard enough to master these! Let alone imagine mastering @higherheels 13cm Hot Chicks - which are obviously also well made

Funnily enough last night after one of my talks one of the group asked if I knew any interesting little known facts about British Royalty. I launched into the story of Charles II and his coronation portrait where he’s wearing four inch heels. And I told the broader story of men in heels in the 17th and early 18th century. A few were interested but two of the couples glared like I was telling some kind of dirty story. It was unsettling

I was thinking back over the tours I have led over the years - and there have been many, well over fifty - and of those I cannot recall a single one of the guests ever wearing heels. Once, years ago, on an Antarctic trip, one of the guests wore leather trousers to one of the dinners on board but that was as racy as anyone ever got.,

That’s an interesting idea. My own efforts have been pretty tame this past week but I hope to do better next week. I’ve been really pleased though by how working with my 12cm heels has really made me comfortable in my 10cm ones. They feel more like extensions of my feet now instead of something I’m wearing. The 12cm stilettos are still a challenge

Seems like a very nice encounter - the casualness of it is what is most pleasing.

Yes a good interview with someone from HHP would be very illuminating. As you say, there are some aspects to this feat which would be worth knowing.

I have to say I’ve not put anywhere near enough miles on my heels to come close, as yet, to wearing them out. That is both good and bad

Snap! I’m doing the same in my hotel room! It’s so nice to have virtual company in this. I’m finding the hotel room a good place to practice - I can get seven or eight steps, enough to count and it’s a nice activity after a day of being on a tour bus!

Yes, I’m done with mid heels too. I’m in my hotel on the tour tonight with my 12cm heels - renewing my acquaintance!

I’m off to lead another tour, my 12cm stiletto boots packed in my suitcase for after hours practice. I’ve been very slack the past few days, sticking to my 8cm chunky heeled ankle boots. I’ll see how much I’ve regressed when I try them on in my hotel this evening.

That’s an excellent point! A lot of sports are - or can be - bad for you. And yes, heels have risks like any sport or form of exercise, but they have benefits too: filter calves, better balance, and easing of back spasms (I’ve found) if you suffer from them. One can’t look just on the debit side for heels, and just on the credit side for sports and exercise

I remember seeing this story a while back. It’s certainly an impressive feat - as indeed climbing all the 14,000 foot peaks would be in any sort of footwear. But I don’t see what is being accomplished here in any broader sense. I don’t see how it’s altering or challenging stereotypes or doing much of anything besides getting her some odd-spot publicity. I like wearing heels, but I just don’t see the desirability of climbing mountains in them. it would be like me deciding to perform the Swan Lake Ballet in my Scarpa Mountaineering boots. It might be possible, but what would be the point?

Congratulations on the milestone! That’s a lot of walking in high heels. I’ve never kept track of any of my mileage. You would have some interesting insights on heels and durability and the training necessary to be adept at walking in them. i like this thread by the way. Although I might not respond I always read and enjoy your posts.

Yes it’s encouraging. I think too that my recent efforts to try to learn to walk in 12cm heels has paid dividends in my being suddenly much more at home in 10cm heels

Leave for my next tour on Wednesday. I am doing three - this is not my main line of work but rather a useful side hustle. The first one was in Scotland and that was where Charles II was relevant, him being a Stuart king and his coronation portrait (in heels) hanging in Hollywood House. My other two are in the Lake District and along Hadrians Wall - not much relevance for bringing up Charles II. And I don’t think Wordsworth wore heels.

Back home again after three days of scrambling around in work boots with a very heavy camera bag. Rather than plunging back into practicing in my 12cm stilettos I'm taking a day or two at leisure, in 8cm block heeled ankle boots. Gosh they are easy to walk in! And yet still satisfying in terms of being in heels.

Not really. They were all pretty relaxed within their own spheres. Nobody ruled the roost. It was just the ingrained Pavlovian response to the notion of a guy in heels - in this case King Charles II, long dead. They were all quite decent sorts and if they'd seen a chap in heels they might have smirked to themselves, and each other , but nobody would have done anything mean or said anything out of place. Whatever inner thoughts, leanings or curiosities they might have felt about heels - if they had any at ll - would have remained within themselves.

Indeed. There was an element of “thou dost protest too much” about this. I’m sure there is an element of fascination here, and a secret longing simply to step away from the rules of the herd.

Oh I agree. Perceptions are changing. It’s just the tourist groups that I end up leading can skew my impressions - they are so tightly wound and abstemious. When the waiters offer coffee after a meal they positively blanche (caffeine!) and at the whiskey distillery on the Scotland tour they primly decline the offered tastings. Their attitudes towards heels were perfectly aligned with everything else

No opportunity even for mid-heels today - a day of gadding about on an assignment that requires steel-capped work boots. I considered bringing a pair for after hours at the pub I’m staying at but after I hefted my bulging camera bag, with the tripod lashed to the outside, I thought better of it!

Indeed not boring at all! So much more fun than flats - and quite liberating to step outside the pigeonholes. it always strikes me as funny to think that if we were to read in National Geographic about a tribe of South Sea islanders who’d developed all these complex and contradictory taboos about a style feature on their footwear, we’d smile and find it quaint but amongst ourselves we take it so incredibly seriously, as though it were a natural law, something encoded in our chromosomes: women wear high heels, men do not.

Yes! That’s one of the things about heels that fascinates me. There is sort of this “official” view these days that they are tools of the patriarchy, designed to hobble and objectify women, and must therefore be discarded and abandoned. on the other hand high heels are worn with panache by some of the most powerful women in the world who spend small fortunes on designer heels and speak of the sense of empowerment that comes with putting on a pair of lofty stilettos and striding into a meeting. what’s the story? Nobody waxes lyrical about their hiking boots or a pair of loafers but you can fill a book with quotes about the transforming magic of high heels. Heels are a fascinating cultural icon

I suppose it is odd that there are so many men on a high heel forum. We’re we’d a pretty normal lot really, whatever our out of the ordinary fashion tastes. I was always curious to try wearing heels - perhaps it’s the people-watching travel writer in me and my fascination with the foreign and exotic. Heels looked fun, stylish, a challenge and had the additional allure of the forbidden. I originally was just interested in trying 8-10cm chunky heel boots - a kind of edgier version of the hiking boots I’ve lived in for ages. I tried them and really liked them and was emboldened to push the envelope a bit further into the world of stilettos. And now trying 12cm stilettos- the black diamond slope of high heels!

I smile to think of the three of us, all very different, living in three different countries and on different continents, doing much the same things … I agree - 7cms is a minimum

Yes the story of how heels came to Europe and became a masculine fashion, later to be repudiated during the Age of Enlightenment is fascinating. I’ve done a fair bit of reading and research on the subject since I first learned of it and when I tell people about it they are invariably interested, even if they scoff at the idea of men in heels. Humans are a strange species