Heels in future in

[killer heels]

Proper heels, for me anyjow 4 inches plus are rarely seen  these days, unless really clumpy platforms.  With the me too movement,  woke ness etc, do you think they'll ever return?

[Jkrenzer]

30 minutes ago, killer heels said:

Proper heels, for me anyjow 4 inches plus are rarely seen  these days, unless really clumpy platforms.  With the me too movement,  woke ness etc, do you think they'll ever return?

It's cyclic. They'll be back again just like before. 

This time I expect more unisex as heels are the last bastion to fall. Some of us are already pushing it.

I wear 5 inch stilettos everywhere pretty much everyday. The positive reactions I get tell me acceptance is there, you just need to own it.

[Shyheels]

I think it is a bit different this time. Yes, fashion is cyclical but this downturn isn’t about the usual restlessly shifting tastes and fashions but about a new kind of authoritarianism where a nasty vocal minority on Twitter etc. can - and do  - bully the larger populace into following a particular narrative.

Its possible that heels may make a return, but it will take more than just the usual pendulum swing. , 

[mlroseplant]

There are no talking points I'm aware of that have the least thing to do with fashion cycles or habits. The fact that one can now get through life quite easily without ever having owned a suit or a dress, or had occasion to wear such, speaks much more to the issue.

On a somewhat different subject, aren't we supposed to call it "X" now?

[Shyheels]

It’s always going to be Twitter to me, and I don’t want a bar of it. What in earth was Elon Musk thinking - if you can call it that - when he decided to name his rapidly shrinking investment “X”?

[alphax]

It's another prescient vision of the future by Musk, because Twitter might very well indeed be everyone's (e)x-platform in the future...

Heel heights are definitely cyclical.

What do they say?  Stocks, hemlines and heels go up together?

In the 70s the pundits thought all women would be wearing baggy t-shirts and Birkenstocks from then on but that didn't happen.

[Shyheels]

But in the Seventies we didn’t have social media steering the collective mindset, and fashion followed a more natural ebb and flow. What is happening today is very controlling 

[Chorlini]

On 9/20/2023 at 6:17 PM, alphax said:

It's another prescient vision of the future by Musk, because Twitter might very well indeed be everyone's (e)x-platform in the future...

Heel heights are definitely cyclical.

What do they say?  Stocks, hemlines and heels go up together?

In the 70s the pundits thought all women would be wearing baggy t-shirts and Birkenstocks from then on but that didn't happen.

Even in the 70's women still wore heels. Just chunky platform ones. Now they have all but disappeared. I don't buy into the cyclical thing. We have generations of women now who never wore heels and they are NEVER going to wear heels. If you are not used to wearing them they will hurt you every time you them and as a result you will want to wear them even less. It is over. On the rare occasion I see a woman in heels it's almost 99% of the time a woman in her 40's or older. And lets be realistic about it, women wearing heels is a fairly recent thing. Before WW2 it was rare to see a woman in heels, it only gained mass support in the 50's and 60's, with increased wealth and prosperity for the lower and middle classes on the one hand, and the advent of the stiletto heel on the other. Overall, it was only a few generations of women that wore heels and I reckon they will be relegated to the same niche fetish community as was the corset. And the corset was around for a much longer time. I hear no one speaking of some cycle whereby corsets will make a comeback. High heels everywhere was a phase, it happened, and now we are in the dying days of that phase.

[Shyheels]

I don’t agree. Heels are certainly in a cyclical low and I don’t thing they will rebound in the way typical fashion cycles have worked in the past. Social media and enforced herd-think has changed that forever. But I do not think that heels will fade out completely or that heel wearers will be relegated to a niche fetish community. Nor are heels analogous to corsets.

Corsets, ruffed collars, powdered wigs etc have all had their day and are pretty well extinct. The heel is a staple design feature on nearly all forms of dress footwear - men’s or women’s. At issue is the height of the heel. As long as this design feature persists, designers will tinker with it. And there is no sign of this design feature disappearing - only that it is less exaggerated.

While stilettos may be scarce these days boots with two to three inch chunky heels are common. And I dare say will remain so. And I doubt even the stiletto will disappear.

High heels have been around for well over a century, although the stiletto for only the past 70 years or so. They are well established in the zeitgeist and while I think it will take more that the typical fashion cycle to bring back the kind of stiletto wearing common in the 1980s and early 2000s, high heels are not going to disappear 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Shyheels

[Bubba136]

Both male and female fashion is based on whatever attracts, excites, interests, stimulates members of the opposite sex.  Possession of items displaying the most recent items produced to demonstrate individual position, wealth, taste and desireability will never disappear or cease to exist even though form and function may change.  Looking back through human history reveals both body enhancement and items of jewelry as well as animal skins and clothing have been used for these purposes since before recorded history.  Women wearing high heels disappearing ?  Forget it.  Because, nothing else will ever enhance a woman’s desireability to the extent that they do.

 

[Chorlini]

19 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I don’t agree. Heels are certainly in a cyclical low and I don’t thing they will rebound in the way typical fashion cycles have worked in the past. Social media and enforced herd-think has changed that forever. But I do not think that heels will fade out completely or that heel wearers will be relegated to a niche fetish community. Nor are heels analogous to corsets.

Corsets, ruffed collars, powdered wigs etc have all had their day and are pretty well extinct. The heel is a staple design feature on nearly all forms of dress footwear - men’s or women’s. At issue is the height of the heel. As long as this design feature persists, designers will tinker with it. And there is no sign of this design feature disappearing - only that it is less exaggerated.

While stilettos may be scarce these days boots with two to three inch chunky heels are common. And I dare say will remain so. And I doubt even the stiletto will disappear.

High heels have been around for well over a century, although the stiletto for only the past 70 years or so. They are well established in the zeitgeist and while I think it will take more that the typical fashion cycle to bring back the kind of stiletto wearing common in the 1980s and early 2000s, high heels are not going to disappear 

Corsets were around as a staple of women's clothing for centuries. They even outlasted powdered wigs by centuries. Completely gone now. What makes you think that heels will fare any better? They're going the way of the dodo because something else has cropped up which completely upended the cycles of fashion. Modern day feminism. It HATES ANYTHING feminine. We have reached the weird zeitgeist where women don't want to wear heels because they are feminine, and feminism teaches them that anything feminine is bad. But guys wearing heels, as in the gender destruction ideology, that fits right in there. And again, all those women who never learned to walk in heels in their formative years aren't going to magically pick up that skill. Even the whole designer heel craze of the last years was just a craze of the upper and upper middle class women, not of women in general. In general it has been sneakers and those accursed army boots. Hell, even in p0rn I see more and more women wearing sneakers.

Heels are going the way of the Western. That genre which once dominated Hollywood movies for decades since its beginning. And then one day it was over. And occasionally we still get a western, maybe two, and the trades call it return to the genre. And then it dies out again. So it will be with heels. The vast majority of women will stop wearing them or think themselves adventurous wearing 2" chunky heels. Some will still wear 4" or higher, but they will be mostly in certain professional spheres, like entertainment or law. Without young people taking up heel wearing there is no cyclical return. And I don't count 2" chunky heels or flatforms as heels.

[Shyheels]

I already explained why I think heels will fare differently than extinct fashion items like corsets - because we all wear something on our feet and will continue to do so. The heel is a design feature on footwear and has been around for thousands of years. At issue is how high the heel will be and that will continue to vary up and down with the changing of fashions.

virtually nobody had ever worn stilettos until Roger Vivier launched his new collection in 1953. At that point the base skill set would have been zero yet that did not stop the stiletto from catching on. Women acquired the skill because they wanted to, it was fashionable and they were willing to suffer a bit for the art.

Sure, there is a very loud and authoritarian feminist voice in social media denouncing anything feminine and urging a kind of bland uniformity but it is a mistake to believe - as they would like you to believe - that they speak for all and that theirs is a universal truth. Behind all the trumpeting and authoritarianism are millions upon millions of people simply leading their lives as before. Lazy journalism has amplified the voices of this unpleasant minority but the world generally continues to revolve as it always has.

[Heelsfor30]

I fear that heels may be gone forever. At least here in the US. Women here seem totally content with dressing frumpy in sweatshirts etc. it’s not like women are wearing dresses or business suits and flats instead of heels. Their whole outfit is about comfort. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see this lack of heels crisis as cyclical this time.  

[mlroseplant]

I haven't weighed in on this yet because the thread got a little too far off the track right from the beginning. I don't think heels are gone forever, in just the same way that the suit and tie is not gone forever. It's just that the application of such clothing is rather limited today, because the world is much more casual than it was 50 years ago. There are a few women that still wear heels because they want to, but there are fewer and fewer every year who wear them because they feel they have to.

One of my high school classmates (1986) got a job at Wells Fargo right out of college, and she's still there today, getting ready to retire soon. When she first started, it was expected that you show up to the office every day wearing a suit and tie, or a suit and hosiery and heels. That is just simply no longer the case. And honestly, how many people would choose to wear a tie every day if it weren't required? Very few, including among our bunch. There's your answer.

Having said that, I know very well that many women sort of aspire to heels, because I get enough regular feedback to know that the desire is kind of latently there. 90% of the time it's, "Oh I WISH I could.  .  . Oh, I could NEVER wear those!" Blah, blah, blah. There are about half a dozen girls in my son's high school class who always wear heels when the occasion is dressy. Problem is, the occasion is hardly ever dressy, so the shoes don't get much practice. As a result, I have yet to see any girl that age who actually looks comfortable and relaxed. Contrast that to my age group where there were several girls who had mastered the art of high heel walking by 7th or 8th grade.

No, I don't think they're going away, because almost everyone agrees they look cool. They will continue to be on the sidelines, however, because of the general state of fashion in the modern world.

[Cali]

On 9/30/2023 at 10:16 AM, Chorlini said:

Even in the 70's women still wore heels. Just chunky platform ones. Now they have all but disappeared. I don't buy into the cyclical thing. We have generations of women now who never wore heels and they are NEVER going to wear heels. If you are not used to wearing them they will hurt you every time you them and as a result you will want to wear them even less. It is over. On the rare occasion I see a woman in heels it's almost 99% of the time a woman in her 40's or older. And lets be realistic about it, women wearing heels is a fairly recent thing. Before WW2 it was rare to see a woman in heels, it only gained mass support in the 50's and 60's, with increased wealth and prosperity for the lower and middle classes on the one hand, and the advent of the stiletto heel on the other. Overall, it was only a few generations of women that wore heels and I reckon they will be relegated to the same niche fetish community as was the corset. And the corset was around for a much longer time. I hear no one speaking of some cycle whereby corsets will make a comeback. High heels everywhere was a phase, it happened, and now we are in the dying days of that phase.

I saw many under 40 women in 3+ inch heels, one in at least 5 inches in the last 10 days.

[Shyheels]

I think a lot of the fashion cycle regarding heels concerns heel style and height rather than heels themselves. Three inch heels - especially in ankle boots = is not at all uncommon.

[Chorlini]

On 10/8/2023 at 8:24 PM, Cali said:

I saw many under 40 women in 3+ inch heels, one in at least 5 inches in the last 10 days.

I don't know where you live, in my neck of the woods, a Dutch university city so TONS of young women, NOTHING! 2" chunky at the most. These are the women who will never pick up heels as they never learned to walk in them. And when I do see a woman in heels she is almost always way over 40.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Chorlini

[Shyheels]

Nobody walked in stilettos until the 1950s when they suddenly became the fashion, and women very swiftly learned how to do it. The same will happened again - all it would take is some K-Pop band on Tik-Tok to make heels their thing and it would be a craze. 

[Chorlini]

5 hours ago, Shyheels said:

Nobody walked in stilettos until the 1950s when they suddenly became the fashion, and women very swiftly learned how to do it. The same will happened again - all it would take is some K-Pop band on Tik-Tok to make heels their thing and it would be a craze. 

As part of my job I must scan a lot of old photos. There is a crucial difference to back then and today. Femininity is under attack and the ruling feminist establishment HATES all things feminine. So women are pushed to adopt male garb instead. Stilettos were seen and still are as the height of femininity. As such it is frowned upon. When stilettos emerged you would not see a woman in baggy jeans and flats. Feminine garb was the norm since like forever even before the stiletto. That norm is gone. Also, I recently saw an episode of podcast of the Lotus Eaters, and Carl was interviewing Calvin Robinson. Calvin was dressed in suit and tie, Carl in comfy loungewear. People have stopped presenting themselves at their best in favor of comfort. To some people presenting themselves at their best means wearing an expensive track suit and designer sneakers. Women are giving up femininity and adopting genderconfusion and comfort is the way of the land.

Might things change if some K-pop band were to wear heels? Well, maybe temporary. Just like the odd Western hit in cinema was prophecized as a return of the Western. It did not. A brief fad does not equal a trend. Nor can it undo generations of women accustomed to wearing sneakers and those accursed army boots. They might wear them for the odd occasion, or because of some fad, but because they are not used to them, and the absence of a culture imperative to present themselves as feminine it will be young women tottering around uncomfortably. And it will be the equivalent of going to the restaurant and only putting the heels on to get from the car to the dinner table. Fads do not equal trends, and the trend has been against heels for a long time, even during the designer heel craze.

[Shyheels]

I think with all these things it depends on where you live, the circles in which you move and your own perceptions on society’s drift and the swing of whatever pendulum you’re talking about.

If heels really are that universally disliked and scorned, and are so widely regarded as unwearable then perhaps they should go extinct.

I don’t think they will though. There is a powerful feminist lobby today, true, but these movements, by their intolerance, often create their own backlash. There was quite a powerful anti communist movement in the US during the fifties - and to the actors etc who were black listed it must have seemed that this would stretch on forever. It passed eventually. People got sick of it.

Humanity is easily distracted and bored, always on the look out for the next big thing - and nobody knows that better than fashion designers. 

[Heelsfor30]

I have to agree with Chorlini on this one.  A lot of good points made. I fear heels are going going and soon mostly gone 

[Cali]

13 hours ago, Chorlini said:

I don't know where you live, in my neck of the woods, a Dutch university city so TONS of young women, NOTHING! 2" chunky at the most. These are the women who will never pick up heels as they never learned to walk in them. And when I do see a woman in heels she is almost always way over 40.

I was down in Australia most of the time. I also work at an university and see a few women in 3+ inch heels. I have been told that I make them want to up their game, especially when I wear my stilettoes.

[mlroseplant]

There has been quite a bit of talk about feminine style becoming gradually less feminine. It has also been suggested that somehow this phenomenon is political. It might be easy for one to assume that under certain circumstances. I would suggest, however, that we've been here before. Remember the Grunge Era of the mid 1990s? High heels pretty much disappeared for several years, and if there were any, they were huge honking combat boot things. I can remember talking about this on Jenny's High Stiletto Heels site, the predecessor to this site.

I can remember, having been a sort of foster parent to a teenaged girl at the time, that it seemed the fashion object of the time was to look as dirt poor as possible. People went to a great deal of trouble to make it look like they rolled out of bed about 15 minutes before they showed up at school. The coolest kids always had 2 inches of raggedy string around their pant hems, as the style was to wear your jeans 2 inches long and walk on the hems all day. Belly buttons were definitely on parade, though maybe not as much as today. Sound a bit familiar? This stuff has happened before, and people will get tired of it after a few years.

This is not to say that kids never dress up at all anymore. I took this picture the other day, and the subject was accidental. I was actually trying to get a picture of the church organist, but this young lady was standing in my view, serving communion. After cropping and blurring faces, I feel I can post this good example of what young women consider dressing up a little bit, looking decent. No heels, of course, but hardly masculine. It would seem that announcing the death of femininity is perhaps premature.

[Bubba136]

Looking at that picture shows me that the young woman takes some effort to show that she is female.  Besides the dress and long hair that traditionally would reflect a person as being a “girl,” take a look at her feet.  While some men might appear in public these days wearing long hair and cute dresses, I doubt they would take the time necessary to paint their toes to express their femininity as carefully as young girls do these days.

[Bubba136]

 

 

 

Taking a second look at this picture, and thinking again about it’s purpose, it is difficult to tell the organist’s sex from the clothes she is wearing. I say “She” because the heels of her shoes look to be thicker than those on shoes that a boy would be wearing.  However, if I was playing the organ, and someone took a picture of me like that, the heels on my shoes would be much taller thus adding more “trash to the mash.”

[mlroseplant]

21 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

 

 

 

Taking a second look at this picture, and thinking again about it’s purpose, it is difficult to tell the organist’s sex from the clothes she is wearing. I say “She” because the heels of her shoes look to be thicker than those on shoes that a boy would be wearing.  However, if I was playing the organ, and someone took a picture of me like that, the heels on my shoes would be much taller thus adding more “trash to the mash.”

The organist in question is a longtime friend of mine, and she is definitely a she, although from a distance she appears rather androgynous. Without getting into it too much, it is a style and lifestyle choice based on her deep Catholic faith. For example, I am quite sure I could fit the entire contents of her apartment in the back of my van. As for the shoes, organ shoes for both men and women have big heels on them to facilitate certain playing techniques.

My friend is quite fashion challenged, and most of the time she appears to have picked out random scraps of cloth to wear over her body, but we've all gotten used to that over the last 20 years. She does actually own a couple of cute pairs of sandals, and one of them has actual heels!

[Jkrenzer]

@mlroseplantall that beautiful work on the altar platform and the socket cover is really crooked.

[HappyinHeels]

Whilst I agree one does not see heels in most of the USA as often as say 2008-2012 I would add it does matter where one is living or traveling. Heels are a much more common sight in areas such as southern Florida or Arizona where I’ll be headed in a month. If you then add a notable Hispanic element to the population like Yuma for example you’ll see heels are alive and well. I have seen some historical info which says heel heights go up in recessions and go down during economic expansions. What I think has changed is many many heels are being bought and worn by men. I say this after talking to various retail outlets, talking to my Chicago friend who is an independent shoe retailer and combing different shoe sites and checking availability in sizes above 10. All signs point to a sizable number of men buying women’s style shoes. If you tire of seeing too much frumpiness just travel to places in Latin America, Montreal, Paris or even NYC and you’ll see plenty of heels. I say no matter current economics or geographical location just dress for your own success. HInH

[mlroseplant]

19 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

@mlroseplantall that beautiful work on the altar platform and the socket cover is really crooked.

Yeah, I know! And I had to sit right in front of it for an hour.

[Heelsfor30]

HappyinHeels makes some great points.  And I understand heels aren’t exactly dead everywhere.  But in contrast, heels were alive everywhere before this lazy, frumpy look took over.  It’s concerning to me.