Shyheels

I'd not noticed your post before. I'd wondered about your username. Mine is more self explanatory - and suited me better when I first joined here nearly 11 years ago (next month) I am much less shy now about wearing heels. It sounds like an interesting ambition to fashion a pair of heels for your wife. A friend of mine is a bookmaker and I am in awe of his skills both in terms of design and abilities to create with his hands. Shoe 0r boot making is a real art.

That’s certainly not something you see every day

It would depend on the heel and the style - pumps would never last more than a bare few miles. But chunky heel ankle boots if well made might be theoretically possible. Not for the whole journey in one pair. Not even Vibram soled hiking boots would do the entire journey from what I hear. But if you had a big enough budget for quite a few pairs of really well made chunky heeled ankle or knee boots, I should think it would be possible. In theory. Of course the truth is than many would be through hikers never make it, for loads of reasons. It is not an easy hike. Adding to the degree of difficulty by insisting on doing it in heels might be pushing your luck. I wore my chunky heeled ankle boot up the towpath the other day. It was noticeably slower going and I felt less sure footed - and that was without a sixty pound backpack.

Well done! Looks like a nice outing, and a well put together outfit. I liked the colour of those mauve pumps. It would be interesting in a pair of boots

I’ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of the settings associated with the Shackleton story - South Georgia, Paulet Island (where they were hoping to go) Elephant Island (where they did go) and I’ve been into the Wendell Sea in an ice-strengthened yacht. On the other side of the continent I’ve the original Discovery hut, flown up the Beardmore Glacier and stayed at the South Pole. I also toasted The Boss with a shot of good Irish whiskey at his grave at South Georgia. An over winter experience in Antarctica would be incredible. I’ve never don’t that

A century ago pink was a masculine colour - seen as merely a paler version of martial red. Blue on the other hand, the colour worn by the Virgin Mary, was seen as a girls colour. It was an American department store in the 1920s who reversed this, for reasons of their own and which I can’t remember now. So yes, these things can change

Crossing the Rubicon - in heels

South Georgia is absolutely amazing. It has everything that is special about Antarctica crammed into one island. I haven fortune enough to go there several times. I hope you manage to get there too. It is (or was, it’s been a while since I used to travel there regularly) possible to get jobs on some of the bases for just the summer months, a three month contract

There are some really good online translation sites (free) you might want to consider using. Heres one I use: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

I wore my chunky heeled ankle boots (3.5” heels) for a half miles walk down the towpath yesterday to get rid of some rubbish. It wasn’t muddy just uneven and I had to walk carefully. I was certainly noticed, and fair enough - nobody wears heels on the towpath.

As they say of Narrowboats, they don’t steer well going forward, they don’t steer at all in reverse and they have no brakes. It’s not really quite as bad as that - although they really do not steer in reverse. There are little tricks you can use to steer while going backwards but in simple straight out reverse, there is no steering. You can do whatever you like with the tiller, makes no difference. As @Puffer noted Narrowboats are less than 7’ wide (mine is 6’10”) for negotiating the very narrow locks on many of the canals - nearly all of which date from the 18th century. There are wide canals with locks 14-15’ wide capable of taking larger craft - Dutch barges or widebeams or handling two narrowboats abreast - while up north in Yorkshire the Aire & Calder navigation and the South Yorkshire Navigation have locks over 20’ wide and 200 feet long to accommodate the big commercial barges that still use them - usually tankers or barges carrying gravel. It’s an interesting life, living in The Cut

Brilliant! Mind you, what would be even more brilliant is if a guy came up to you and said the same thing!

This is quite an interesting book that somewhat fits the description in the thread title - along with a lot of history, culture and personal observation https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Heel/dp/B07VCGJR2P/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QZ4XHHHJ0NMA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-tICVooyZd-4BbXPcu6UrQ.XxBMCpCrWsr7S149MQoVFO34-_yNQaTRqlVM1aveHqE&dib_tag=se&keywords=High+heel+object+lessons&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1734012644&sprefix=high+heel+object+lessons%2Caps%2C223&sr=8-1

Yes there are a couple of steam driven narrowboats - museum pieces, really. They were never common even a hundred years ago as the space required for fuel took up valuable cargo space. I’ve never seen a petrol powered narrowboat. There are petrol powered craft on the canals - usually cruisers - but I’ve never seen a petrol powered narrowboat. The diesel engines in narrowboats are designed for marine use and have two alternators - one fir the starter and one to charge your domestic batteries for your lights and fridge etc. I’ve a 43hp engine made in Holland. It powers a 58-foot boat that weighs 18 tonnes so no speed demon! The curious sounding boats - think of the sound of the African Queen - are usually those running very old fashioned diesel engines - classic Lister engines and the like.

It’s a different form of movement - pitch, balance, stride length and will vary further with height. And real world walking conditions are vastly different than walking in a wooden floor at home which is where one practices. And not just guys - look on the how-to-walk-in-heels articles in fashion mags and they all advise learning at home. I’ve not had sufficient real world practice to feel comfortable in stilettos although 3.5 inch Chucky heel boots are fine for me. Towpaths these days are mainly for dog-walkers, joggers and cyclists although there are a few historic boats - for show - that are pulled by horses. Narrowboats these days are run in diesel engines although there are a few hybrid and electric ones out there (expensive!)

Nobody said a word as far as I can recall. There’s picture of me wearing those knee boots, quite happily. I guess I was about 12. I can’t think of a single comment that anybody made - and I’m sure I’d have noticed and remembered. They weren’t quite as cool as go-go boots but they certainly made me happy. I wish I had been a bit bolder and declared that this was my style, but I didn’t. Decades would pass before I’d dare out in a pair of feminine knee boots again

Hunter boots are great, when I used to travel to Antarctica regularly I wore them a lot - great for Zodiac landings but sturdy enough for moderate hiking as well. I did the last five miles of Shackleton’s hike across South Georgia Island in a pair of Hunter boots

We were very similar - white go-go boots got me. Loved them and really wished I could have and wear them. I’ve no sisters and my mother didn’t wear heels but she did have a pair of brown knee boots (low heels) that I liked. I broke a toe one winter doing something stupid and those boots fit my swollen foot, and so I wore knee boots all that winter - long after my toe heeled, Looking back I should have simply declared that I liked wearing them - I doubt my mother would have cared, I could have worn them the next winter too. That winter - or the few weeks left of it when I wore knee boots - nobody that I recall said a thing about my wearing women’s boots, I wish I had built off that!

That’s my same circular argument. I don’t wear stilettos much as I am not proficient enough, but I can’t get proficient enough without wearing them. In my case it is complicated by the fact that I am usually moored along a muddy towpath and not only would wearing stilettos be silly, it would just wreck them.

Like you, I do have stilettos that I wear while working, so yes, I suppose they’re technically work boots - my favourite being a pair of lovely black suede OTK boots with 4” heels by Jean Gaborit

My Scarpa mountaineering boots - purchased 1999 - were top of the line boots, and Scarpa is a very respected boot maker. I don’t know where they make them now, but mine were made in Italy of top quality leather and heavy Vibram soles. I have had other hiking boots, some from reasonably well known high street brands, that barely lasted a year. You really do get what you pay for in a lot of cases (but not all!)

Yes you do a very good job of putting things together. With my ensemble of boots, jeans and jumper there is little room for your style of creativity. I could never do the leather miniskirt - although I admit that the other day I noticed an ad for a leather midi pencil skirt, calf length, that did pique my interest, something I could at least imagine with my OTK black suede boots

Undoubtedly having some supportive and, better still a high heel aficionado who can offer useful tips, hints and critique as well as enthusiasm would be wonderful. And a bit of a unicorn, I’m afraid. My heels, the ones I wear regularly, tend to be modest ones - 3 to 3.5 inch chunky heels in ankle, knee and OTK boots. I’m not so concerned about my ability to walk well in them, at that height and chunky heels to boot, it’s not hard, but would welcome fashion advice about what to wear with my boots - what style/shade of jeans, or style/colour of jumper, coat or shirt, with which pair of boots. I’m never confident of being well put together - and there is virtually no fashion advice columns for men who aspire to wear tall feminine-style boots

I’ve never worn pumps. I think I’d be worried about the same things. At least with boots there’s no stepping out of them!

It’s quite a juggling act. Confidence comes with experience - but getting that experience requires an initial dose of confidence. Finding that is the hard part. And yes people will notice that you are in heels, or tall boots, or both, but not all will notice. A surprising percentage ent notice a thing. And if those who do notice few will have anything to say. Stilettos will obviously carry more connotations than chunky heels which can, to a degree, be ambiguous. It will also help if you are open enough to establish what is your natural style in heels and go with that. Positive feelings will build confidence. Don’t turn wearing heels into a numbers game - the higher and more precarious the better. Remember it is a fashion choice - so choose what you like and want without reference to anyone else.