Not "waiting" as in "hoping".
You've grown soft, youngling.
OK, but what about us guys? Are we in the clear for stilletos with slacks, or what?
Is it specifically stilettos you object to or any heel at all?
Because heels look good with pants, calves or no calves, but I can see the spiky-heel argument.
I have no interest in wearing stilettos with trousers of any kind, but I must point out that there are at least two other points to wearing heels: (1) they make you taller, and (2) they change the tilt of your pelvis and thereby the curve of your ass. Either (3) or a subpoint of (1), depending on how you slice it: they make your legs look proportionally longer.
4 - Funny you should ask! I was going to object to heels in general but then I got dressed to go out tonight and put on jeans with (chunkily) heeled boots, which I don't find objectionable. So I started considering different permutations. I think I decided that boots of all heel widths were OK, chunky heels were not entirely objectionable (but I still wouldn't bother -- all my pants are tailored for flats), but stiletto shoes were ridiculous.
I think I decided that boots of all heel widths were OK, chunky heels were not entirely objectionable (but I still wouldn't bother -- all my pants are tailored for flats), but stiletto shoes were ridiculous.
A very nicely-generated irregular verb there.
I'm willing to stand the following ground:
1) Stilettos with pants are ridiculous.
2) It may possibly be more fashionable and/or appropriate to wear heels of other persuasions with pantsuits but I'm not going to because (a) they're pants so I don't have to, (b) fuck it, they make my feet hurt, and (c) I don't care that much about looking good at work because I work with all dudes and none of them would know the difference.
You could start a campaign called "Don't give an inch."
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said.
I don't know the answer to this question, but I want to take this opportunity rejoice in the fact that I rarely, rarely have to wear heels.
I got these the last time I decided I needed a pair, and (idiot) I did not realize that the helpful strap that allows them to stay on as I go striding around also means that when I am resting at my desk I can't kick them off. So my foot stays permanently, artificially arched all day. Ugh.
I should have stuck with the '40s-era Carole Lombard shoes I got for $12 at a consignment store. So what if they are out of fashion. I only wear heels three times a year.
The point, silly Becks, is that the shoes are awesome and you want to be able to wear them with pants. Not because of your calves, but because of teh awesomeness of the shoes.
We're sorry -- no color of this style is currently available.
Does this mean they have them in transparent?
It wasn't until about age 24 or so that I got over my fear of looking like a scary giant and I started wearing heels. So heel-wearing is oddly liberating for me.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said.
Glad to see that one get cleared up.
i remember i read somewhere about women running marathon in high heels
I recently got over my fear of looking like a scary giant and am wearing awesome clogs that add at least two inches to my height.
Now's the time, I guess, for yet another Glamour magazine article entitled something like, "From the Runway to the Real Way: We Show You 5 Ways How!"
B's right, of course. It's all about the fabulosity of the shoes.
Oh, let's be fair. A lot of the time, the shoes in question are not actually awesome. However, the people wearing them may be under the impression that they are. However however, frequently the point is not the shoes but the general look of the leg and foot. It's a look, to be sure, very high stilettos and dress pants cut to be worn with same.
Meh, if you want to be humorless about enjoying frivolous shoes, go ahead, but people wear pants with heels because they like the shoes.
So Clinton's answer was to a question about what we'd do if Iran attacked Israel. More newsworthy if she'd given a different answer.
Meh, if you want to be humorless about enjoying frivolous shoes, go ahead, but people wear pants with heels because they like the shoes.
I love shoes! I spend stupid money on shoes. But have you seen the stilettos people wear with pantsuits? Lots of them are highly unfabulous. I strongly believe it's often not mere love of the shoes driving that fashion choice.
Because they've forgotten to get their pantslegs hemmed up to work with flat shoes.
28: Presumably the people wearing them like them. Or like the look, anyway.
I mean, *I* don't generally do that sort of thing, partly because I own very few shoes that could be classified as stilettos (I had one pair a couple years ago that were amazingly great and comfortable to boot, and I did wear them with pants, actually, but alas, the patent on the toes is starting to fray). Then again I've started wearing platform flipflops now that I live in California, so.
Why do self-identified feminists defend one of the most obvious, relatively easily avoided, and actually physically harmful manifestations of patriarchal control?
I wanted to ask her: given that we're committed to keeping the peace in the Middle East, if the only power in the Middle East with nuclear weapons in the Middle East launches an attack on one of the other Middle Eastern countries, will you retaliate?
It was just disgusting. Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons and isn't getting them, Israel has nuclear weapons and can protect itself without our help, and the big question is whether we will defend Israel against an Iranian nuclear attack. And this issue wasn't forced on Hillary. she's raising it herself.
I love shoes, but I think 6 nails this question.
Here's another feminist defending high heels.
I like shoes and forgot that I wanted to go to a shoe store that was having a 50% off sale today! It's probably closed by now and, to be honest, I probably couldn't afford any of them anyway, even at half off.
Mint juleps do not go with cucumber sandwiches. Credibility: shot.
I love shoes. It is to laugh at 31 as a not even suave or subtle concern troll.
But thanks for coming out, yeah? There's always a "B" team.
...ducking...
I love shoes, but I think 6 nails this question.
Heebie is right!
I like shoes, squirrels, and squares!
Wow. Laraine Newman voiced The Flying Squirrel.
I really wanted to follow up 44 with "Hallelujah, it's raining splen," but... why?
I think squirrels are more awesome even than shoes.
Inappropriate response to 41 predacted. You can owe me.
Heels make you look awesome, and shoes can be fabulously beautiful. But it's just not worth it--the pain, the foot problems, the inability to walk at your normal pace.
I wear them during conferences when I want to jack my 5'2" self up with some authority and gravitas. And then all of my male conference goers have to wait for me because I can't walk as fast, and then they have to take an elevator for just two flights if they want to keep talking to me about employment discrimination law.
Since that conference, I have re-evaluated the wisdom of trying to get gravitas with three extra inches of height. I might be able to look men in the eye, and the better they can see my insecurity and silliness.
But God, I do love heels, or at least how they make my butt and hips look. They also make you stand differently overall, which, if you are busty, can look nice and pin-uppy. This sounds so anti-feminist that I feel bad writing it. As does the memory of my boyfriend paying $7 for a cab ride in SF so that I wouldn't have to walk 0.7 of a mile to the car.
the curve of the calf that is the benefit of wearing heels
Stop right there. you just BLEW my mind.
wow, you're right! I don't know if I ever would have noticed that without being told.
I can't do stilettos as my feet start screaming at me instantly, but I do like heels with slacks. Flats look silly on my feet.
Rah and I caught the UA 90th anniversary festival thing's screening of a completely flawless print of Dr. No tonight. In it there's a scene where a would-be siren is doing her hair, wearing a very casual robe in a bamboo-bedecked boudoir. She gaily flips and rolls on her bed while chatting on the phone with Mr. Bond and when she kicks her feet up the audience sees she's wearing gold lamé heels while lounging about.
People openly and mockingly laughed.
55: I've noticed this before. It saddens me b/c I know my gf would look better sometimes wearing them, but I refuse to encourage it.
What hadn't occurred to me (as a man) was the effect on the pelvis. I find that kind of amusing, b/c I was having back problems and one of the solutions was to improve my posture by thrusting my pelvic forward. I believe this is the same effect you would get from wearing heals. Of course, heals have many more downsides, but still...
I have found that I get just as much satisfaction from wearing clicky low shoes as I do from actual high heels. I enjoy the sound of the shoe clicking on the tile/marble/concrete way more than I do whatever the fuck it does to my calf.
Click! Click! Click! Delightful.
58: heals have many more downsides, but still...
Don't forget there are upsides to heels as well.
I am a fan of the sound of shoes clicking on stone surfaces in empty halls at even paces.
27: Except the entire answer is incoherent:
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
What does that even mean? We're going to attack them for 10 years and dare them to counterattack Israel the whole time? After 10 years our economy will be so fucked that we will no longer have enough money to mobilize an army to obliterate Iran, so they can feel free to act against Israel then? I literally can't find a sensible parse of that answer. It's like when McCain said he wanted abortion outlawed and left up to the states. Oh, did I unfairly compare McCain and Clinton there? Gosh I wouldn't want to associate those two in voters' minds.
Ehh. If women want to wear heels with pants that's their problem, but I do wish somebody would explain to the average Dutch woman that wearing too short, too tight pants that end in the middle of the calf, combined with boots that only cover the bottom part of the calf is not a flattering look.
It's not just high heels. Almost all shoes screw up your feet.
Whence "pumps"?
Not entirely extinct (assuming you
mean the word and not the shoes),
as evidenced by:
Black pants suit, sexy pumps
Take me out to a power lunch
Silk and lace in my database
Baby I want to interface
(Har Mar Superstar - Powerlunch)
Also answers the original question -
I really don't understand women who wear stilettos with pantsuits.
Pants cover up the curve of the calf that is the benefit of wearing heels, so what's the point?
Clearly the point is to appeal to the likes of
Har Mar Superstar, i.e. fat, hairy men who like
to appear in public wearing only underpants.
Sorry, Wrongshore, if I seem to make no sense above. I misread your "whence ...?" as meaning "where did ... go?" I guess I was thinking
of "whither".
58: Um, no. Heels are rotating your pelvis in the other direction, sticking your ass out, not tucking it under -- they'd make your back problems worse.
I just hate them; it's not just the pain, it's having to remember all the time that I've lamed myself for the day, so no, I can't walk someplace, no, I can't keep up a reasonable pace, no, I can't do anything that I need balance for... hate hate hate. But I admit, many of them are pretty.
One possible explanation of women wearing unfabulous pumps with pants -- they work in formalish workplaces, and aren't fond of shoe-shopping. Officey pumps are easy to buy in any color you like, and they're very stylisticly neutral. Flats or wider-heeled shoes are always kind of funky; if you want them for a dull office look, you have to put some thought into it.
(There's also just brainwashing. I was sitting in a courtroom waiting for my case to be called the other day, and watched a lawyer getting ready for trial take off her perfectly respectable flats, and put on a pair of 3.5" red suede spikes. And the rest of her look was very clearly not an attempt to beguile the jury with feminine wiles -- the shoes must just have been a security blanket.)
(1) they make you taller, and (2) they change the tilt of your pelvis and thereby the curve of your ass.
Redfoxtail nailed it here. In my little area of the world, 75 percent of the female lawyers wear at least two inch heels. Sometimes stilettos. Sometimes not.
65: Great article. I spent two years in flipflops that were worn so thin the soles were limp, and that was exactly how it felt having to go back to real shoes. I felt like someone was making me wear boxing gloves all day.
And the rest of her look was very clearly not an attempt to beguile the jury with feminine wiles
Harsh, much?
Heels are rotating your pelvis in the other direction, sticking your ass out, not tucking it under -- they'd make your back problems worse.
I'm pretty sure that's not true. Raising the heel of your shoe is a time-honoured method of correcting/assisting with lower back pain. Raising your heels does tuck the pelvis under slightly.
All right, everyone who agrees that heels make you stick your ass out, raise your hands. Sorry, ttaM, that's everyone.
71: Kinda, but it wasn't even debatable.
72: Maybe when the heel is relatively small, but LB's got it right overall. Or maybe you could possibly stand in heels with your pelvis tucked under, if you concentrated, but you certainly can't walk that way.
That was a great article! I wonder that it doesn't seem to take into account one big difference between our environment and that of the caveman with healthy feet: concrete sidewalks.
But I did like the bit about how restraining the foot means that (naturally) force ends up other places, like the knees and ankles, since that was exactly my sister's experience. She was training for a marathon, and was doing fine until she bought better shoes suited for her flat feet. It changed her gait and soon everything was hurting.
Not that I think she'd do well to go barefoot and run, but I wonder if a less supportive shoes might work well as a training aid for someone whose feet generally are thought to be of the kind that need tons of support.
Aren't there operations on the legs that could fit women's bodies better to high heels? They'd fall down without their shoes on, of course, but that's a small price to pay for looking good.
I believe that operation is known as the 'Barbie'.
The 'full Barbie' of course requires a boob job, too.
Mmmm. I think it might have more to do with the placement, narrowness, and the height of the heel. A slight heel over the wide surface of the whole shoe, like you might find in cowboy boots or men's shoes, does help with lower back pain because you do tuck your butt in, just like if you raise your heels a little barefoot. My dad's always worn men's boots with a cowboy heel whenever he can get away with it because it helps with his back pain.
But women's heels aren't like that. The heel is usually recessed from the end of the foot, and very narrow, so it's not like lifting your heels off the floor. Your balance is in the wrong place.
Chie Mihara! Chie Mihara! Chie Mihara! Perfectly placed heels and anatomic footbeds.
Also around $350 a pair, but you can get them cheaper on eBay.
(How strange to be reading about feet on a day where I woke up with bad footpain.)
I wonder that it doesn't seem to take into account one big difference between our environment and that of the caveman with healthy feet: concrete sidewalks.
I was thinking the same thing. Extra cushion for the feet makes sense when on a surface with zero yield.
FWIW, I have often noticed the ass-enhancing effect of heels, but have never ever noticed any calf enhancement.
Not a calf guy, I guess. [Insert bestiality joke here.]
Other thoughts: there's something very end-of-the-empire-ish about shoes that emulate going barefoot costing $120.
I should start wearing my kung fu shoes more; the lack of a sole is such a welcome difference from regular shoes. Makes you think much more about how you're walking. Besides, they're so amazingly light!
When I switched back to regular shoes I kept feeling like I had massive weights on my feet.
I see 75 rather pwned my anecdote. You are correct, Cala!
i like to see others in high heels, looks nice
too much pain to wear it myself
and i like when people walk soundless
87: Read avoids the "a foolish internal consistency is the hobgoblin of little comments" trap.
I had one pair [of stilettos] a couple years ago that were amazingly great and comfortable to boot
See, I just don't believe this.
Aren't there operations on the legs that could fit women's bodies better to high heels?
Foot binding.
I've worked with three terrifying and widely-loathed women. These were also the only three women I've worked with who wore heels every day that made loud clacking noises. I hate that noise.
I hate that noise.
I refer you to the Saul Bellow post.
I, too, love shoes, however -- and I can't be alone on this one -- I can't stand the sight of someone in heels. When I see 'em, I can't help but wince, and this prevents me from taking pleasure in any ass- or calf-enhancement that the heels are purported to cause. Sorry, ladies (laydeez?).
Interestingly, I'm also an advocate (generally) of "suffer for fashion", so I don't know why I have such a visceral reaction to heels. "Suffer for fashion -- but don't wear your suffering on your sleeve (or feet, as it were)", or something like that. Why the double-standard? Probably sexism. Who knows what lurks in the hearts of men...
Aren't there operations on the legs that could fit women's bodies better to high heels?
If you wear them every day for years, your tendons shorten, giving you the Barbie foot.
For short folk, wearing stilettos is economical. They work with skirts, they work with pants, and you don't have to pay to get your pants hemmed. Insofar as height leads to higher pay, it makes you richer. They help you kiss tall people. I love heels.
Phil Spector wore high heels, and look where he ended up. No wonder women are all crazy.
Not that I think she'd do well to go barefoot and run
They would not agree. Though it would probably take years to get up to marathon length.
They probably also don't have flat feet.
They help you kiss tall people.
You wound me.
A cursory search on The Sartorialist failed to turn up a photo to which I could link, but there's a certain kind of flat shoe, sensible but cute, that looks really great with tights and a skirt. I cannot help but stare shamelessly when I see a cutie sporting this look.
If you wear them every day for years, your tendons shorten, giving you the Barbie foot.
My very tall friend has a very short wife who has trouble wearing anything but heels now because of this.
Mmmm. I think it might have more to do with the placement, narrowness, and the height of the heel... My dad's always worn men's boots with a cowboy heel whenever he can get away with it because it helps with his back pain.
I know women who work on their feet a lot who say the same thing about their high heeled shoes -- that the raised heel can help with back pain.* Perhaps it depends on the individual and on the particular shoe.
* of course it can cause other pain. I'm not advocating for high-heeled shoes in general.
re: 85
S av ate boots are sort of the opposite of those kung-fu shoes. Hard toe caps, rigid soles. Pure evil.
Although a lot of s av ate people train in light 'kung fu' type shoes, or squash shoes as it's nicer on your sparring partner and more comfortable.
If we can put a man on the moon, surely we could develop an adjustable tendon for the laydeez.
They probably also don't have flat feet.
I've never understood this. I've got ridiculously flat feet and I don't notice it running, though honestly I've never done more than a moderate amount of barefoot running.
Don't be ashamed, my flat-footed brother. I don't have flat feet, but I am unprejudiced and accept the flat-footed as though they were normal. It makes them so happy.
I'll invite you to my next tolerance lunch! You can be with other flat-footed people -- together with one guy who really appreciates you guys for your human qualities -- and for an hour or so you can forget the stigma you live under day and night.
You know what makes running hard? 30 extra pounds and exhaustion. You'd think chasing 3 kids would keep you fit, but it don't.
Do you know what is really good for your feet?
Swimming!
Screw running. Get in the pool.
Of course, swimming doesn't make you taller or more intimidating in court.
13 "awesomeness " - PLEASE - someone give me a gun.......