Footwear fashion freedom flyers

[Firefox]

We're hoping to have some business cards or small postcard type leaflets for distribution to shoe shops, meetings, conacts, initially in the UK. Post any comments or ideas here. My thoughts: I think personally we should get away from such phrases as "Heel liberation", "High Heels for Men" etc. It's a bit too fetishy and avant garde for the mainstream market IMO. Instead, I feel the phrase "Men's Footwear Fashion Freedom" or "Male Footwear Fashion Freedom" (MFFF), are more appropriate. Of course fashion freedom includes things like platforms, wedges, heels, and other styles of uppers than the "Oxford Boat". That will be made clear on the literature, but just to concentrate on heels would wrong I think. <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Firefox on 2002-01-28 01:22 ]</font>

[Bob]

Good luck with these! Thought, why don't the shoe retailers put some of the more masculine styled women's shoes onto the men's racks and see what the reaction is? Could be interesting ....

[Tech]

personally, i think we should all just wear our heels and be happy, to go out and start some kind of campaign would be to "rub other peoples noses in it", personally i prefer just to go about my business, where my heels, and live life, i enjoy running my website, and happily promote the whole fashion idea of it all, but i am not into pushing it in other peoples faces, and i think that if we started some kind of business card type of thing then an awful lot of people would take it the wrong way and think we are some kind of fetish group campaigning all the stores with cards and leaflet's, i think its better just to stick to dealing directly with the shoe stores and the manufacturers, like petitions, emails and letters, do it subtly and do it well, just like you do when wearing high heels, dont force the issue, just do it !!!, but thats my point of veiw, sorry to sound negative but i just dont want people thinking its some kind of cult group

[Bob]

I've got to admit that this is something I fear also, however, I think firefox's idea was to contact manufacturers and shoe shop's not joe public (correct me if i'm wrong firefox) I do think it's important not to portray ourselves as some kind of fetishist's and just another bunch of people who like to wear what we like to wear

[Firefox]

Yes, I wasn't thinking of "pushing" it with anyone who doesn't show some initial interest. I go about my normal life and make a point of never talking about my footwear until someone shows interest or asks about it. When we go on a heel shopping trip, we often get interest from the shoe shops or sometimes passers by, and it would be nice to have a business card type thing to give them with the website addresses and a few thoughts on what we are about. This would be especially true for the shoe shops, and we might even cold mailshot manufactures, though that type of "awareness" campaign is expensive and often has limited effectiveness. As for the name, I think I suggested "Men's Footwear Fashion Freedom." Even that might be a bit too "crusading" for the common taste. Perhpas "Men's Alternative Footwear Fashion", as suggested by Bob, or even "21st Century Footwear Fashion" are plausible alternatives. _________________ Believe in your right to wear what you want <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Firefox on 2002-01-28 00:00 ]</font>

[terayon]

I think that this is a great idea, not that it should be pushed, but even if its sole purpose is to enlighten the public about this, I think if the public was aware that men wore heels that they would be a lot more accepting, and a lot more people might do it...great idea!

[Bob]

There's a discussion going on at the moment on Tom's Cafe about contacting companies to ask them to stock skirts for men, i've proposed an e-mail petition and am thinking that it could be for Freestyle in general i.e. ask them to stock everything from high-heels to skirts and other accesories usually associated with womens fashion, what does everyone here think?

[hoverfly]

Just make sure that they have websights and overseas shiping.

[Bubba136]

Good idea. However, I don't believe they will accept it unless we can demonstrate there's a larger market than they're aware of -- and they can make a profit selling them.

[Bob]

Well, interestingly, i've recieved an e-mail from somebody relaying a reply from levi, who've stated that although they don't have any "current" plans to market mens skirts, they do make their denim range with right hand fly's specificaly because males customers by them for themselves Perhaps there's hope yet?

[Francis]

back on the idea of business card style plyers for Mem's Fashion Freedom, maybe we should get a common design going. it would have been handy to have had some cards done for the recent Birmingham meeting. We could have cleaned up there! so come on all you creative design types. give us your designs. remember it's business or credit card sized and no doodles on the back of envelopes, fag packets or toilet roll, thank you!

[Bob]

A common design, logo, and name for the movement as a whole is def good idea, unfortunately art is not my stronges point! However, with a community the size of ours there must be someone into design?

[Bob]

some very rough figures Approx male population of US - 120 million Polls suggest approx 1 in 5 men would wear skirt so = 24 million If men spent on average $1000 on clothes in first year skirts were available this would translate to $24 billion for the US & EU combined this would equate to something like $65 billion in the first year alone! And that doesn't include South America, Canada, Australasia or the Far East! Surely if we can get these figures across to the retail and manufacturing industry they will jump at the chance of creating a multi-billion dollar market? The figures are very approximate but are no doubt indicitive of the potential market, they are probably quite conservative in fact

[Bob]

My apologies about the above being exclusively about skirts on an hh board but I used the dreaded copy & paste from another forum However, can anyone come up with the figures for high heels? I'm not aware of any representative polls on the subject ( the figures I used for skirts were based on an aol poll) Bob

[Dr. Shoe]

The only problem with male heels is in the fact that there is a diversity of opinion about what style should be promoted as a fashion. Should it be stilettos, blocks or something in between? Some men (given the chance) would wear stils and not blocks and others wouldn't touch anything other than blocks. I would estimate that only one man in a hundred would wear heels on an experimental basis, even then only a small percentage of them would wear the heels simply becuase they were high and would wear style promoted regardless of the type of heel they were. Some current high heel wearers would still want the girls' styles simply because there are always going to be differences.

[Bubba136]

Bob posted: "If men spent on average $1000 on clothes in first year skirts were available this would translate to $24 billion " I think these figures to be quite high and not very realistic...However, even if cut by 90 percent, that would still be an astounding amount of money -- "a really big bucket of boodle."

[Francis]

10% of 24billion isn't all that much if you spread it across 24 companies all trying to cover the same market and there would be! But, you're right in one respect, if one company took up the challenge it could be a real big profit maker for them, but who's brave enough to go for it? Nike, Adidas or Versace? To any them, it would be an extreme risk, but the rewards would be substantial. Take these figures to a more global market and it would be a killing

[Bob]

This is exactly my train of thought, all it will take as a few brave companies to show there is a profit to be made and then lots more companies will join in, as it is, some niche companies have already started marketing less conservative clothing for men, river island for example. They have already got a line of hipster boot-cut jeans for men, and I recently bought a top which is embroidered and has a slight ruffle around the cuffs and waist which was until recently the preserve of womens tops So there is some movement in the menswear market already, suggesting that a more "feminine" style is marketable

[Bubba136]

Perhaps these companies are "putting a toe in the water" to test the market. I don't think it would be that difficult -- those that already have the ability to manufacture would just have to increase the sizes of the styles they are already making.

[Yamyam]

To be honest, for a lot of companies, it would just be marketing what they do slightly differently. Many shoe companies do 'large size women's' ranges, so all they'd need to do would be to publicise the styles differently, and we're there. As for skirts, I'm not so sure on that one. I can't claim that much experience in this field, but I'm sure it can't be all that different. But if David Beckham can cause a run on pink nail varnish in the Midlands, all we need to do is get Posh to persuade him to go for a pair of hh and we're done. (And I know I've said this before, but I still think it's true)

[Bob]

All it will take is one or two role models, the kind of men considered to be supremely masculine, to wear these sorts of clothes, and rest as they say will follow

After all, most fashion lovers are dedicated Followers of fashion (or uniform, it depends on your point of view )

[Firefox]

I can't see Becks ever doing heels. Maybe Posh wants to keep the heels for herself; I think she has a lot of influene in what he wears.

[Francis]

maybe someone should brainwash Posh then. Shouldn't take more than 3 seconds!

[Yamyam]

That's a bit harsh, isn't it But Posh actually wears heels quite a lot. (But Sporty was still the best-looking Spice Girl!)