Shyheels

Add to the list of silly things people do …

I’ve never done it, never intend to do it and don’t even own a car but it seems like driving in heels is a topic of interest so I decided I’d start a thread. i wouldn’t mind trying cycling in heels though. I’ve seen it done quite stylishly by women in London and on the Continent.

How many police reports include an inventory of everything g the driver was wearing? Unless it was something spectacular, like you were driving home in your Folies Bergère costume, nobody is likely to notice

Hmmmm. I still think the odds of anyone being taken to court for driving barefoot or in heels is vanishingly small. There would have to be some truly spectacular other factors and even then that would just be an extra charge thrown in for good measure.

That’s what I would have guessed too

I too am working on a novel - a black comedy crime story set in the 1920s. My heroine, a delightfully a-moral flapper, wears heels but only because it is naturally a part of her way of dressing. The only time the heels actually figure in the story is when she conveniently stumbles in them and falls in the way of a detective whose pursuing a crook whom she feels sorry for, tripping the lawman and ending the chase. Her breezy excuse that she just can't walk in these silly things falls on sceptical ears since she won a Charleston contest while wearing them only the previous night, but since she's also extremely rich, aristocratic and well-connected nobody is inclined to argue the point. The detective takes his fractured skull like a man and she goes on her way with an airy flip of a bejewelled wrist.

Yes but proving it would be another matter - virtually impossible and I can’t see a public prosecutor being interested in pursuing a comp,I aged and likely unprovable case … for what?

Thank you! I’m quietly excited. You and @mlroseplant have both been huge helps and great influences

Back to the high heels challenge: I've been continuing to make good progress in my 12cm boots. It's even more fun now to drop down to the 10cm ones, which I can handle - at least in my indoors practice area, with something close to aplomb. With an eye to one day soon trying out my 12cm stilettos my venturing to a cafe, I rather boldly ordered myself a very nice pair of chocolate-brown leather trousers. They were boot cut and so would have obscured the shafts of my boots but they looked smart in the photo so I ordered them. They arrived yesterday, and while I liked them, they were also really baggy in the lower leg, well beyond what I thought boot-cut should be, especially with slender calves like mine. So sadly they'll have to go back

Wood is an excellent shock absorber. It’s why surveyors usually have wooden tripods for their laser surveying gear - it’s not that they can’t or won’t afford carbon fibre but because wood simply dampens vibrations that much better. Photographers, for whom weight is often an issue, waver between carbon fibre and aluminium - wanting the stabilising weight of aluminium, and the easier portability of carbon fibre. But for vibration reduction and stability, neither holds a candle to wood

Yes, go to Rome or any Italian city and you’ll see plenty of elegant high-heeled women zipping about in Vespas

I can tell you absolutely that you don't want to pilot a narrowboat in heels! Certainly not stilettos! You could probably get away with it in chunky heeled boots with 7 to 8 cm heels, but I wouldn't fancy it - not as a single-hander, unless you had someone to work the locks.

I’ve never tried driving in heels although I don’t think I’d find it a problem, except perhaps for worrying about damaging the heels. I can drive a manual easily - I learned in them, drive them all my life and indeed most of the cars here are manual. I can also drive a left or right hand drive vehicle, changing back and forth readily as I used to have to do on a regular basis when I travelled a lot

It’s always best to write what you know

No, the cramping i experienced in my calves is/was directly and unambiguously associated with my not being used to walking in 12cm stilettos. With practice the cramping went away, and pretty quickly.

Me too!

That’s horrific. You mother should have gone to prison. I can’t imagine being so twisted

Buying sneakers is a real rarity for me. I have nearly always worn boots of some sort, except for cycling or going to the gym. Or many years ago when I used to run marathons. I bought the Converse because I liked the pastel colours and so ironically they’ve ended up being like @higherheels Hot Chicks - purchased because they looked fun and ended up being left in the closet because they’re hard to wear!

@mlroseplant and @higherheels - Thank you for your presence and encouragement! I’m really quite chuffed. I really feel quite at ease. To be sure I’m not out striding a high street, on roughened sidewalks, taking curbs and hustling to cross that the lights, but as I walk confidently around indoors I can certainly now imagine doing such a thing and doing it with reasonable grace. i too find this who catwalk routine ridiculous. It looks exaggerated and absurd on the catwalk. In real life it would be comical.

Yes, Keds, like Converse, are flat, offer no support and in my case the thinness of the soles gives no cushioning to the nerves in the balls of my feet. They are much more painful than my leather soled stilettos

I think maybe I'm starting to get somewhere with my practicing, even if it is just indoors. I put on my heels this morning and felt really quite grounded, on solid footing. Its really nice!

I totally agree. Discomfort is one thing, actual pain is something else and is never something to put up with. Stop, recuperate, find out what caused the issue then fix it or modify whatever you need to prevent it from happening again. I have never done anything silly with heels, but I’ve ignored pain while training for distance running many years ago and learned to regret it. curiously enough the footware that seems to be most likely to give me problems are Converse trainers (sneakers) I bought a couple pair because I liked the pastel colours and then discovered that the thin rubber soles led to some serious pain in the nerves in the ball of my right foot. I stopped wearing them except on days when I know I won’t have to walk far - ironically not unlike I do with my 12cm stilettos!

Yes I guess that is very much a First World problem - the potential troubles with driving in towering Louboutin stilettos! Not a problem shared by much of the world. I can see too where the 13cm heels on Hot Chicks might not be suitable for a lot of situations. And a bit of overkill for grocery shopping! In a way our challenges are quite similar. There is nowhere within easy walking distance for me to wear my 12cm heels or indeed any stilettos. Simply getting off the boat in them would be impossible. I’m moored along a little jetty which is essentially a long fibreglass grate. A stiletto heel would simply go through one of the holes before you took a single step. And then there is the muddy chalky towpath for a kilometre before a very steep farm road up into town. So I have to put my stilettos in a backpack and change into them. I can do that in the park and practice there, but wearing 12cm stilettos in a small farm town grocery store seems overkill, Otherwise it’s a matter of catching a bus to a bigger town. And so the obstacles to real world practice start to build up.

Yes, Hot Chicks are a pretty serious challenge. I had thought my indoor practice in my heels would have meant more than it did. Real world walking is so much different. I kind of like the challenge though. I’m looking forward to another try at the park

@higherheels Thank you so much! This high heels challenge has been such a help and such fun too. I’ve bought myself a new pair of jeans to wear with my 12cm boots as a reward for my hard work - and hopefully will get to wear them soon to a cafe for cake and coffee. Just need to get in a bit more real world practice. I have to be certain I can ace this! How are things going with the Hot Chicks? Did you ever reward yourself with the night out you mentioned after your successful outing a few weeks ago?