Shyheels

Congratulations on your new record! Sorry to hear you’ve been ill, blighting what seems to have been a strong start to the year. We’ve been having heavy rains here, and so my favourite suede boots have been sitting idle, except for being worn around the house - great for keeping feet warm in the home office. Bring on spring!

Nice to meet you and welcome back!

Glad you’re back!

Just a note to wish everybody a happy and prosperous - well heeled, so to speak - 2024. Also to say how much I enjoy the exchanges and conversations here, and look forward to more in the coming year.

It really just comes down to individuals. Stereotyping small town folk or those who frequent DIY stores as as closed minded as their perceived stereotyping of heel wearing men.

Congratulations! I agree with your interpretation of high and mid heels. To break your record, ten years on, and in considerably higher heels is quite an accomplishment! Now for 2024…

I’m not at all surprised to hear that there are far more men than one might at first think would be interested in heels. Curiosity, if nothing else, to say nothing of a restlessness for change, and to escape all the stifling conformity that is men’s lot as far as fashion is concerned.

I can’t understand how wearing heels would be more comfortable than flats with a broken toe. Gravity would keep blood in the area of the injury and increase swelling - rest, ice, compression and elevation is what woukd want for an injury like that

You walked 8000 steps in a broken toe?

Well done. I’d say your record is well within grasp with a full week left to go. We’re having an unseasonably warm Christmas here in Britain as well

I’m a big fan of chunky heeled ankle boots. Love them

Well done! What kind of heels? Boots? I should think it would be a little nippy for sandals. Enjoy NY! It’s been many years since I was there. Thirty? More? How time flies

I should think having a legal. Background would see you bounced pretty swiftly anyway

I was considerably older at the time than you would have been in the 1980s and, I suppose, the added maturity in years - to say nothing of the very different world of the 2010s - allowed me to take a more dispassionate look and more calculated appraisal, although, as I say, it was still unsettling to see myself in stiletto knee boots and skinny jeans.

Yes, imagine being called as a potential juror for a case involving a fashion designer and in you stroll in some five inch Louboutins. I can’t imagine the prosecution being happy with that

Nearest I ever came was reading I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane

It was a special delivery

I remember the first time I forgot to hide my heels and answered the door to our post lady while wearing my stiletto knee boots.

Interesting! The first time I saw myself in heels - in my case chocolate brown knee boots with five inch stiletto heels worn over skinny jeans - I was unsettled. Not horrified, but definitely unsettled. It felt very strange to see myself in stilettos. Rather than get all self conscious about it, as I might usually have done, I studied what I saw and I realised that was unsettling about it was not that I looked bad in heels but the unexpectedness of it, the femininity of them as counterpoint to the rest of me. Considered dispassionately I did not look bad in stilettos. My legs are slender from being generally fit, and if one was to see an image of just my legs, from the thighs down, one would have made an assumption that it was a picture of a woman’s legs in high heels. It is only when one sees the male top half that the unsettling bit comes in. My conclusion is that men do not intrinsically look bad in heels - it’s just that it is unexpected, contrary to the norms and therefor unsettling. The more it is seen, the less unsettling. And perhaps the more minds open to the idea that men can look good in heels.

Well done! And that’s a pretty brisk speed you maintain. Average walking pace is considered to be three miles per hour, and that’s with average footwear not four-inch heels. So well done you!

Yes, the world is blinkered. We are also our own worst enemies in being so fearful of stepping out of line and jeopardising our masculinity. Women will adopt a masculine fashion without a second thought and make it their own. Men would never dare to do the reverse. Like you I fancied a particular style of feminine footwear as a child. In my case I really liked white go-go boots. Oddly enough it didn’t even occur to me, at first, that these were only for girls and I nearly blurted out a desire to have a pair for myself. I don’t recall what alerted me but I was mortified to find I had been hankering for a pair of girls boots. it scared me off for many years

Yes, God forbid we inject humour into the discussion

My! Rather touchy, aren't we? The historical link with men and heels is rather well known, as are the 17th century paintings you posted. If you like I can give you chapter and verse on the introduction of heels into Europe - the envoy sent by the Shah of Persia to the court of France in 1599, and the racy footwear worn by their cavalry officers, and how they cut a dash with their exoticism and swagger and made high heels a hot fashion at court for the next century; I can tell you about Louis XIV and his love of heels and England's King Charles II who, at 6'2" hardly needed the extra height yet wore four-inch heels to his coronation (as seen in his official painting); I can tell you about the daring coterie of high-born women in the early years of the 18th century who began wearing men's fashions until heels and bright colours began to be seen as something feminine; I could tell you about what sociologists call the "Great Male Renunciation" in the mid 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, when gentlemen wanted to appear scholarly and intellectual, rather than preen around like peacocks at court, and forswore adornment in favour of sombre shades and practicality - an imprisonment of thought we've never really moved on from. So there we are. Happy now?

Women don’t need swords - they have stilettos!

It's one to see your new thread launched! I shall certainly be following! I must admit I'd like to do something of the sort myself, but struggle to think of things to sat or write that might be of interest.