Master Resource: General Public Discussions of men in heels

[at9]

Asos have a lot of men's boots with heels. The highest, at 5", is this example which to my mind is hideous: https://www.asos.com/asos-design/asos-design-heeled-chelsea-boots-in-stone-monogram-print-with-toecap-detail/prd/202817383?clr=stone&colourWayId=202817388&SearchQuery=mens+heels

[Shyheels]

Truly hideous indeed. I suppose it is nice that they market heeled ankle boots for men, but much as I like ankle boots, I've yet to see a pair of theirs I would actually want to buy.

[at9]

I have a pair of these and wear them a lot: https://www.asos.com/asos-design/asos-design-heeled-chelsea-boot-in-faux-leopard-print/prd/203044136?clr=brown&colourWayId=203044145&SearchQuery=mens+heels

Compare with: https://www.ysl.com/en-us/boots/vassili-zipped-booties-in-leopard-print-suede-6676201FL002198.html

The YSL ones will be better made and possibly more comfortable but I'm certainly not spending that kind of money.

 

[Shyheels]

That is a lot of money indeed. I have a several pair of very nice custom boots from Jean Gaborit, which cost about half what YSL are asking, and are totally worth the money. Not only are they beautifully made, and beautifully fitting, they are also made in France rather than somewhere in the Far East - an important consideration in my view. I know people on here have many dozens of pairs of heels - I’d rather have just a few, but really nice and ones that will last me (at my age) probably the rest of my life 

[bambam]

Those "Mens" boots are all essentially Chelsea boots, so, the main go-to for the bridge from men to femme, as far as the second half of the 20th century goes. I actually don't mind them, I'm not much into prints, but they are not that dissimilar from the blocky square toe boots a lot of women wore in the 70's and 90's. Just watch some off the older Friends episodes and you'll see them. Easy to pull off, and can be worn any way, really. 

 

The stiletto boots from YSL are just another attempt at rebranding an existing boot, but with the gender-bender thing going on as well. I would love for there to be a demand for boots by men at that level, it just isn't there yet, and as I'm sure we are well aware, the more people continue to push this issue in attempts at social engineering, the more people push back. I sometimes wish people would quit 'fighting' for it, and just let people be. Courage is not extraordinary, it must be commonplace. 

[pebblesf]

56 minutes ago, bambam said:

Those "Mens" boots are all essentially Chelsea boots, so, the main go-to for the bridge from men to femme, as far as the second half of the 20th century goes. I actually don't mind them, I'm not much into prints, but they are not that dissimilar from the blocky square toe boots a lot of women wore in the 70's and 90's. Just watch some off the older Friends episodes and you'll see them. Easy to pull off, and can be worn any way, really. 

 

The stiletto boots from YSL are just another attempt at rebranding an existing boot, but with the gender-bender thing going on as well. I would love for there to be a demand for boots by men at that level, it just isn't there yet, and as I'm sure we are well aware, the more people continue to push this issue in attempts at social engineering, the more people push back. I sometimes wish people would quit 'fighting' for it, and just let people be. Courage is not extraordinary, it must be commonplace. 

I really think that much of the "push back" come from guys that just don't have the courage to wear heels they secretly admire.  Or, perhaps from women who can no longer wear heels, or feel somewhat insecure seeing guys in heels.

10 hours ago, Shyheels said:

Truly hideous indeed. I suppose it is nice that they market heeled ankle boots for men, but much as I like ankle boots, I've yet to see a pair of theirs I would actually want to buy.

I agree, that crazy pattern on those ankle boots does nothing for me as well

8 hours ago, Shyheels said:

That is a lot of money indeed. I have a several pair of very nice custom boots from Jean Gaborit, which cost about half what YSL are asking, and are totally worth the money. Not only are they beautifully made, and beautifully fitting, they are also made in France rather than somewhere in the Far East - an important consideration in my view. I know people on here have many dozens of pairs of heels - I’d rather have just a few, but really nice and ones that will last me (at my age) probably the rest of my life 

I agree with the points you make.  Just because boots have a designer label does not mean they look good or are well constructed.  But, I also agree that buying quality boots is a "good investment".  Look better, feel better, and last much longer.   

[Puffer]

14 hours ago, at9 said:

Asos have a lot of men's boots with heels. The highest, at 5", is this example which to my mind is hideous: https://www.asos.com/asos-design/asos-design-heeled-chelsea-boots-in-stone-monogram-print-with-toecap-detail/prd/202817383?clr=stone&colourWayId=202817388&SearchQuery=mens+heels

I was aware of the growing ASOS offerings with heels - of various styles and heights - but hadn't spotted the new one you link.   I agree that they are hideous in terms of the pattern, although the overall style and heel is quite appealing, albeit too extreme for public wearing for most men, including me.   What I had in mind as a possible (and affordable) 'ASOS winner' is a close copy of the YSL boots with a heel of around 3.5".   There is nothing quite like that from ASOS at present, but who knows ...

[Jkrenzer]

4 hours ago, Puffer said:

I was aware of the growing ASOS offerings with heels - of various styles and heights - but hadn't spotted the new one you link.   I agree that they are hideous in terms of the pattern, although the overall style and heel is quite appealing, albeit too extreme for public wearing for most men, including me.   What I had in mind as a possible (and affordable) 'ASOS winner' is a close copy of the YSL boots with a heel of around 3.5".   There is nothing quite like that from ASOS at present, but who knows ...

Why are these heels too extreme for you? Is only because you can't handle the height or is it because you're worried about what others think?

Hopefully the prior as a little, I mean little, practice and you shouldn't have any issues. These are really not very high relative to men's sizes. If it's the latter, then it's unfortunate and  part of the problem.

[Cali]

Or could it be that these are too ugly? I wouldn't wear them because I don't like their looks, my feet - my taste.  To me, fit and style need to be satisfied. And I certainly don't care what people think when I run errands, such as, Costco shopping in knee high suede boots with a 4 inch heel. 

[Shyheels]

Yes, it's not totally about the heels - at last it's not with me - it's the overall aesthetic. For me that means clean lines, elegance and a kind of cavalier styling that heels of a certain range of heights and shapes tend to impart or enhance. Jaunty yet edgy is the look I go for - it's not that easy to find. 

[Puffer]

5 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Why are these heels too extreme for you? Is only because you can't handle the height or is it because you're worried about what others think?

Hopefully the prior as a little, I mean little, practice and you shouldn't have any issues. These are really not very high relative to men's sizes. If it's the latter, then it's unfortunate and  part of the problem.

If those boots were made in a plain black or dark brown (with no silver toe trim), I would consider them a wearable style, although possibly a little too high for lengthy outside jaunts (which would not be known until I tried them).   I would be concerned about the reaction of others if the whole boot was clearly visible, but much could be concealed under suitable bootcut trousers, which is how I would expect to wear anything like these.

[Jkrenzer]

I think all black and the shape would look pretty good on you.

[pebblesf]

6 hours ago, Cali said:

Or could it be that these are too ugly? I wouldn't wear them because I don't like their looks, my feet - my taste.  To me, fit and style need to be satisfied. And I certainly don't care what people think when I run errands, such as, Costco shopping in knee high suede boots with a 4 inch heel. 

Yeah, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm not the most bold and confidence when it comes to wearing boots, but I wouldn't wear these because they are ugly.  The heels/height are fine though.  

[kneehighs]

Does anyone here have a english captions for this interview?

 

[kneehighs]

Recent article from American Vogue about men wearing platform high heels

https://www.vogue.com/article/mens-platform-heels-trend

[CAT]

41 minutes ago, kneehighs said:

Recent article from American Vogue about men wearing platform high heels

https://www.vogue.com/article/mens-platform-heels-trend

And does anyone here wonder why this "trend" goes nowhere?  Did you see the shoes?  looks completely stupid and ridiculous.  Wear a f***ing normal pair of heels 

[pebblesf]

7 minutes ago, CAT said:

And does anyone here wonder why this "trend" goes nowhere?  Did you see the shoes?  looks completely stupid and ridiculous.  Wear a f***ing normal pair of heels 

Yeah, wearing crazy stuff like that is surely not going to promote heels for guys.

[Cali]

Fee Waybill of the Tubes.  "White Punks on Dope"

At least in the 70's they were tasteful (?)

 

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=fee+waybill+and+high+heels&fir=ehqog8rVoxe6WM%2CSHdR1kAAtcvtaM%2C_%3Be5SMqypNEY7N_M%2CQMQoPjeE0cOPvM%2C_%3BuH22-kjqzLqL1M%2CPe8QlHRmOhhiBM%2C_%3BklJdFY5Rtbj1rM%2CKnbo_V1gSJbWfM%2C_%3BR_9jKfRhM9TiYM%2CSHdR1kAAtcvtaM%2C_%3Big8nlPxDaE44lM%2Csedugr77kBjwhM%2C_%3Bo9Un0M-Ko8LpTM%2CCRXhgq5jrrnpTM%2C_%3BDxfqM491sp3ZzM%2ChS9TTCzvv1hE1M%2C_%3B4xLcybOSmdcUnM%2C_iQY5GOGCDCMdM%2C_%3BRAPPrCYFNuKaSM%2CfIgg8EXE_qLmHM%2C_&usg=AI4_-kQntkq2ZEnulZbCJAfs3a4363ijWA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL0dHik8D7AhXkSTABHYQCDDYQjJkEegQICBAC&biw=1391&bih=820&dpr=1

[Shyheels]

5 hours ago, CAT said:

And does anyone here wonder why this "trend" goes nowhere?  Did you see the shoes?  looks completely stupid and ridiculous.  Wear a f***ing normal pair of heels 

Exactly correct! This is just the sort of thing that turns people off. If men in heels is ever to become acceptable to the mainstream, they have to be tasteful and presentable. Nobody with any taste would wear these and the idea that this is what is meant by men wearing heels would turn people off in a big way. It is an uphill battle as it is to change perceptions about wearing heels without anyone going out if their way to make it harder

[kneehighs]

On 11/21/2022 at 9:24 PM, CAT said:

And does anyone here wonder why this "trend" goes nowhere?  Did you see the shoes?  looks completely stupid and ridiculous.  Wear a f***ing normal pair of heels 

Why what trend specifically goes nowhere?  

Men in heels has taken off in the broader public largely thanks to Gucci/Alessandro Michelle's creative leadership since 2015. The same opinions have consistently been lodged here for years: "eww, those heels are hideous...why do they dress so flamboyantly..." Yet if measured by social media stats, high street retailer accommodation, and luxury label accommodation, we just experienced peak acceptance.  All despite the majority opinions here. 

How out of touch everyone here seems because they project their own tastes onto the broader market acceptance.

But now Michelle is leaving Gucci.  Hopefully, that's just a one step back in two steps forward evolution on the men in heels journey.

[Shyheels]

If this is peak  acceptance we might as well all forget it in terms of actually making heels a mainstream thing.

Social media is not reality - it is a construct. So-and-so may have a zillion followers on IG and TikTok and dress daily in a top hat, bow tie, and lavender zoot suit paired with eight inch Frankenstein platforms but that means precisely zilch in the real world. Go to a train station or airport, sit at a pavement cafe on a busy city boulevard - spend a month, dawn to dusk doing nothing but people watching, and you’ll be able to count the number of guys in heels on the thumbs of one hand - and that’ll be yourself.

The overwhelming percentage of people do not wish to stand out, let alone dress like a circus clown. There will always be a self identified elite who will go all a-flutter over the click-bait offerings of some publicity hungry designer and because of social media they get outsized attention and imagine that their own cloistered world is the universal one. It isn’t. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Shyheels

[Puffer]

2 hours ago, kneehighs said:

...

How out of touch everyone here seems because they project their own tastes onto the broader market acceptance.

...

Perhaps that is simply because most people here have a balanced and sensible view of style - what works and what doesn't in everday real life.

Acceptance by the (unwashed) 'broader market' is not the same as good taste.   In the UK (London in particular), there is alas a fast-growing incidence of serious knife crime - broader indulgence/acceptance by a despicable minority but scarcely in good taste.

[mlroseplant]

I suppose one could write a doctoral thesis on the relationship between the fashion designers and the fashion that one actually witnesses on the street. Maybe somebody already has. I'm not seeing a big relationship between the two. I think what our pop stars and our movie stars present has a lot more influence, and even then, it might take, or it might not.

I personally do not know what influence TikTok has on young people, and to a lesser extent Instagram. My 13 year old does neither of those. He's a Youtube/Facebook guy. Then again, he thinks he's 40 years old. He does get occasional questions from his classmates as to  why his dad wears "booty shorts." Not at this time of year, obviously.

What do we count as acceptance, or peak acceptance? I think I'm about there. I haven't been harassed in ages, and cars full of teenagers no longer follow me around, trying to snap pictures. Does TikTok have anything to do with it? Does high fashion have anything to do with it?

[Jkrenzer]

There is acceptance. I currently wear heels openly at work, 5 inch classic pumps. In years past these were considered CFM heels. I have no issues, been promoted and received large raises due to my work.

When out in public I rarely get comments and when I do it's usually from women who love my shoes and wished they could wear such.

To me that's acceptance. 

[chesterx]

18 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

When out in public I rarely get comments and when I do it's usually from women who love my shoes and wished they could wear such.

This has been my experience as well. its been months since I have had any interaction of note when wearing m heels in public. I never thought my public outings would, dare I say, become boring. I am wondering if it is because I'm visiting the same locations most of the time & people just got used to it. I don't know but I kind of miss the early days of my heeling...

[Shyheels]

There is certainly a sense of adventure in it - the quiet thrill of stepping out of the norm. It’s why people travel. 

[Jkrenzer]

6 hours ago, chesterx said:

I am wondering if it is because I'm visiting the same locations most of the time & people just got used to it.

I would say this is correct. We humans are animals after all. We tend to routine ourselves.

Several of my routine travels have people also in routine so we see these strangers often. In my case, my Friday morning breakfast spot often has a certain ex female college basketball player who loves my heels. She's always telling me she looks forward to seeing what o have on. We have the same size feet but athletics ruined her feet, total arch collapse, so she can't wear heels.

[kneehighs]

On 11/24/2022 at 8:56 AM, Shyheels said:

If this is peak  acceptance we might as well all forget it in terms of actually making heels a mainstream thing.

Social media is not reality - it is a construct. So-and-so may have a zillion followers on IG and TikTok and dress daily in a top hat, bow tie, and lavender zoot suit paired with eight inch Frankenstein platforms but that means precisely zilch in the real world. Go to a train station or airport, sit at a pavement cafe on a busy city boulevard - spend a month, dawn to dusk doing nothing but people watching, and you’ll be able to count the number of guys in heels on the thumbs of one hand - and that’ll be yourself.

The overwhelming percentage of people do not wish to stand out, let alone dress like a circus clown. There will always be a self identified elite who will go all a-flutter over the click-bait offerings of some publicity hungry designer and because of social media they get outsized attention and imagine that their own cloistered world is the universal one. It isn’t. 

That’s like saying Mainstream Media doesn’t affect narratives, culture, or consumer buying preferences.  

As media may be separate from reality, so social media may be separate from reality. But to devalue and discard social medias effect on exposing the broader public to the reality of men in heels is a fools errand.  Even if one wants to just call it propaganda, that doesn't take away from it's effects on people's behavior.

That you personally don’t see it in reality and thus discard social medias influence reminds me of the logical fallacy Argument From Ignorance, "a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true" 

Regarding other comments, people here have long held the belief that acceptance starts with oneself. Then broadens out to friends, family, co-workers. Etc. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by kneehighs

[Shyheels]

Mainstream media is not promoting men in heels.

Men in heels is either clickbait - with the most bizarre examples being put forth - or else the storylines associated with these articles are praising this new-found supposed gender fluidioty for those in the Alphabet spectrum. They specifically do not include the average guy in the street. It's not an assumption on my part, it is often explicity stated in the articles, extolling how wonderful it is than trans people and the LBGTQ+ crowd are now being able to express themselves. And so it is, but like it or not the average man on the street does not identify with that crowd and the relentless asociation of heels and LBGTQ+ crowd makes it much less likely that the rank-and-file are going to be open to wearing heels themselves.

And no, it will not trickle down - any more than trickle-down economics reaches the base.

My realioty seems to accord with virtually everybody else's reality in terms of the number of men one encounters in real life who are wearing heels. Vanishingly small. I have travelled much more widely than the average person, to well over 100 countries, and travelled in depth as well - every US state, every Canadian province, nearly every English county, ever Australian state etc. I have never seen a man wearing stilettos and the few times I have seen men wearing heels, it's been chunky heeled boots.

THis is not to deny they are out there - but I've been to an awful lot of places around the world and done a lot of people watching, and I'm not seeing any changes in the percentage of heel wearing in real life. If you doubled, tripled, quadrupled the number or percentage of men in heels you would still be left with a tiny fraction of a percent.

Or to put it another way, invert it, think of a coach or physio or manager of an NBA team. In their world, people who are seven feet tall are fairly common and met with on adaily or near daily basis. In the real world - the world as lived by the  vast majority of the world - seven-footers are extremely rare. I read somewhere once that fewer than one in a million humans attain a height of seven feet. So while no one denies there are seven footers, any more than anyone denies that some men wear heels, you are most unlikely to encounter one in your day to day life. 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Shyheels

[Mr. X]

Unfortunately, Men in Heels is not going to gain any steam or traction, until we see plenty of regular joe's wearing regular heels in places like Home Depot.