High-heeled women- unusual?

[Gayle Gold]

I assume that most of you women wear high heels of some description? Do you find that you are unusual in society as you experience it? Do any of you wear heels higher than the bog-standard chain store highest of 4" out and about - whether at work, shopping or out. Do your friends wear the same or what do they think of you? I find that very few ladies wear any heels and my friends certainly don't - thinking me a litle odd. Some men like it (although others are jeering booze-swilled comments so cannot tell. Are we that odd? GGxxx

[stilettolover]

Hi G.G. I find that in my everyday rounds, that I almost always see little or no heels on women today. I think they mostly reserve them for more formal or evening wear these days. I also see less and less of what I would call "business appropriate" clothing amongst the office personnel.(lots of jeans and t-shirts) That brings me to say, Yes , you who wear heels is beginning to be quite a rare occurance.

[Gayle Gold]

It seems that the older women (and I am not talking old) who would have been brought up with either the platforms of the 70's or the stilettos of the 80's tend to say that they are just looking for comfort. In addition, they wore them to attract their man and then when they get their man the heels are dropped. This is often to the men's dismay - and then they wonder why the eyes wander. As for girls of my age or younger, we weren't brought up with heels. In fact, the girls seem to want to be all the same and quite macho - wearing Ugg (aptly named) boots or they live in trainers. When thewy think they are wearing high heels - they are tiny little spikes. Just makes any of us that do wear heels feel a little freaky GGxxx

[mk4625]

Katherine used to wear high heels a lot before I married her (last year). Now she wears mostly 1 - 2 inch heeled loafers to work. She wore badly-fitting shoes the first few years she lived in this country and that (she claims) caused some incurable foot problems. She will wear something higher when we go out to dinner or for coffee but it takes some nagging from me. Her "Scream" boots (Pleaser 8848) are worn only in the house and she can't walk more than a few steps in them. I don't like Ugg boots either. Katherine's younger sister wears them all the time and bought a pair for their 11-year old niece. Victoria though they looked like ski boots and she exchanged them for a pair of Keds.

[RPMindy]

sorry about her 'incurable foot concerns'. i've heard other guys tell me that once married, their wifes cut on the height of heels. I had an aunt do the same. dated while wear 4 and 5 inchers. now married, rarely gets up to 3 inchers. her husband is still furiuos about it and they've been married several years now. but yes, the trend has been away from heels in general, but like another thread pointed out, in the conservative religious circles, that doesn't seem to be the case. lucky for me. Even luckier is the fact my lady is going up in heel height the longer we're together. We'll see after marriage...... RPM p.s. sorry, couldn't resist speaking in the gals section. i'll go back to behaving.

[taliheels]

as a bloke always looking out for women in heels i always see a generously enjoyable supply- but rarely in extreme heels

[HeelD]

Several girls in my office wear some great high heels which is great. One girl has a gorgeous pair of pink pumps (probably 3") and another wears some cool black pumps (3") quite regularly. The ladies' heels vary quite regularly too. So, yes girls still wear high heels - judging by the way they all are in New Look and Primark when there's a sale.

[heelsrule]

You can thanks us (Australia) for the Ugg boot, although it took the USA to make it a street fashion item (and for trying to steel the name). Historically we just wore them inside in winter. I still see plenty of younger office working women in heels, yes 2-4" range. Most I see who do the higher end heels don't travel to/from work in them, simply change at work which is probably a smart thing for their feet/legs. I really cannot believe anyone wears 5-6" heels for any real length of time. Office is ok if you are sitting down most of the time. Offices have been generally getting more casual for a long time now, Brisbane being warmer than Sydney or Melbourne would be more so, as most more formal office attire is usually heavier and more covering. Shane

[dr1819]

The only one's I see wearing heels to the office on a regular basis tend to be either older women who grew up with the practice, or thin waif's for whom wearing heels is probably less problematic than the heavty ones. Most who wear heels regularly wear leather heels, probably because it gives better over time.

[peachyshoes]

I have found that the trend is definatly veering away from high heels in favour of flat chunky shoes and boots. Also out of the ladies who come in my shop I find that the hight of the heel seems to decrease with age. However most of the ladies who go for the extreme heels (over 4 1/2 inches) are older than say, thirty. I have also found that some of these women have been asked to buy them by their husbands, so I am not certain wether these women would wear these shoes if not for the gratification of their partners. I have been plesently suprised by the amount of ladies who do actually wear the extreme heels to the office, but I have been shocked to find that some employers have requested that they are not worn to work as it is apparently, as one employer put it, "offensive"! Has anyone else had a similar experience? Thankyou Mel

[Bubba136]

Hmmm! The ugly stigma attached to high heels seems to propagate without letup. How to get rid of the association between heels and hookers -- or heels strictly for sexual foreplay -- is just as big of a problem as men wearing them...... Garnering information from the fashion world, it would appear -- with all todays top models parading up and down the runways displaying the latest dress and fashions, while wearing high heel-- that concept would be self-changing.

[RPMindy]

my boss said it's the concern of sexual harassment lawsuits that keeps the ideas out of the office. my boss, a woman, says she'd wear heels more if it wasn't for the fact that men notice and the patients notice. she doesn't want the extra attention, so she drops her heel height for work and outside of work, she's in them. (as you can tell, i'm cool with my current boss like that) at my last job, the same, fear of sexual harassment charges if a guy made a compliment on the heels. so, the policy said no heels allowed... period!!!!! the job before that, wanted heels, but not too tall. the manager (a guy) didn't want to be written up for noticing how high the heels were. the job before that, the boss felt that if she couldn't wear the heels comfy, then the workers shouldn't. so she gave those who wore heels, a very hard time and gave all the assigments that required the most amount of standing in place. she felt it wasn't fair that they could and she couldn't (so her actions suggested.... i'm not that cool with her to talk like that) the job before that, was a very conservative place, so heels were to a minimum. the dream job I wanted but didn't get, all the ladies wore pretty tall heels. the place was very upbeat and fast paced. but I didn't get in that is my two cents on it. it's a shame really, because some circles are loosening up and wearing more heels, but not everywhere. RPM

[Heelfan]

My answer to the question "Are high-heeled women unusual?" is that it depends whether you know where to look. For instance, in my region in and around Bristol U.K., people who wander around the local villages, outskirts, or even the city centre on a weekend morning will be lucky to see a single pair of heels over 2.5". However, visit the city centre any Friday or Saturday evening and you'll be gobsmacked! I gave exactly that advice to a member who lives 20 miles South of Bristol, and he duly came up the very next Saturday night and stood outside the Hippodrome theatre. The next day he posted to say that he had seen more fantastic high heels clicking past in one hour than he had seen in the whole of the lasty five years in his own little town. Likewise, my jazz band performs at a lot of weddings and similar functions. They are AMAZING, because a lot of ladies who wouldn't normally wear heels make that special effort (often buying them specially)to look their 'smartest' at weddings. Such functions are a veritable feast of heels. On a more depressing note however, as I hope said on previous threads about fashion trends, internationally high heels are currently on the wane: Fashion slavishly follows a 20-year-cycle: 1955 The start of the first stiletto craze. 1960 The peak of the stiletto boom 1965 The end of the first boom 1970 The dreaded "Grunge" peak - flat granny boots etc. 1975 The start of the next high heel phase (platforms for men and women) 1980 The peak of the 2nd stiletto boom (plus high heeled Beatle Boots for men) 1985 The end of the second stiletto boom 1990 The second dreaded "Grunge" peak - girl's flat lace-ups & Doc Martins. 1995 The start of the next high heel phase, beginning with stacked heels, blade heels etc. 2000 The heels peak in height, mostly stilettos (nothing for men this time though) 2005 The end of the high heel boom - kitten heels and flatties. Prediction: 2010 Another inevitable grunge period AAAAAArrrrrggghhh!! Mournfully yours, Heelfan

[zoidberg]

It's been show that there's a correlation between the length ( or shortness) of ladies' skirts and the economic performance of the country at the time. Economic performance was very high of the UK during the 60's when skirts were at their shortest. I wonder if there's any such correlation with high heels?

[dr1819]

That would indeed be an interesting study. I tried finding some long-term charts of economic interest, but no luck. I do know the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, one indicator of a country's economic performance, was 2.7% APR increase betwen 1987 and 1995, and 4.1% APR increase between 1995 and 2000. Given Heelfan's 20-year cycle, it appears that a low or falling GDP corresponds with grunge, and a high or increasing GDP corresponds with heels. Hardly scientific, and we're just looking at two swings of the cycle, so... What happened in 2001, a drastic reduction in GDP, followed by a waning interest in heels, appears to support this as well. There are definately ties between consumer confidence and fashion trends. Put simply, low confidence appears to breed both a depressed fashion statement (grunge) as well as a "roll up your sleeves and get to work" statement, such as what we see in the blue jeans cycles. And high confidence and increasing wealth leads to more refined (expensive) fashions. Could be the designers are pushing higher, more expensive fashions to the stores when people have a greater belief that they can afford it. I have few doubts that heels fall in there somewhere. Just wish I could get my hands on a long-term historical chart of the GDP and CPI. It would reveal a bit more.