A parcel arrived for me in the post this morning, an elongated white box that
looked at a glance as though it might have contained a bouquet of flowers. The
fragrance of fresh leather when I lifted the lid was bracing and authentic. As I parted
the tissue and beheld my new purchase, I could feel my cheeks flush. I’d never even
tried on a pair of high heels before, and here I’d gone and spent fancy money on
designer knee boots, autumn classics in chocolate-brown leather with four-inch
stiletto heels.
They were made in Italy and rather pricey, an extravagance I’d justified on the
grounds that, as bucket-list experiences go, treating myself to a pair of high fashion
heels and exploring the style was a bargain compared with the exotic travels that
usually feature on such lists.
I’d gone with boots as my gateway into heels in part because they seemed
the sensible choice – if sensible is ever a word you can apply to stilettos. I might be a
newbie at fashion, but I’d done enough walking in my life to guess that if I was going
to be perched atop four-inch stiletto heels, having a style that offered a decent bit of
support seemed a wise idea. After all, I wanted to succeed at this, not end up in A&E
with a twisted ankle and a dumb back story.
I just hoped they’d fit. At first glance, they seemed oddly small for the stated
size. Happily, this turned out to be only an illusion. My inexperienced eye hadn’t
taken into account the foreshortening effects of a steeply arched footbed and lofty
stiletto heels. When I eventually tried on one of my new boots, I was surprised to find
it fit like a glove. I ran the zip up the side, fumbled my way into the other one, then
sat for a few thoughtful moments on my kitchen chair, my legs stretched out in front
of me, turning my ankles this way and that, marvelling at the novelty of seeing these
long talon-like stiletto heels on my feet.
I’ve been wanting to do this for ages. It’s my guiltiest secret: I’ve always wanted to try wearing high heels. I liked the loftiness and cavalier styling, although I know I’m not supposed to – such a contrast to the puritanism on the men’s aisle! My sporty side wondered how tricky it was to walk in them while the writer in me was fascinated by the mystique.
We all wear something on our feet but nothing so highly charged as a pair of
high heels. Or so complicated. Glamorised, politicised, loved and loathed, they’re
denounced by feminists as tools of the patriarchy, designed to hobble women for the
amusement of men, yet worn with panache by the most powerful women in the
world, global leaders in business, politics, arts, and entertainment who spend small
fortunes on designer heels and if asked why speak glowingly of the emotional lift and
sense of empowerment that comes with slipping on a pair of stilettos and striding into
a meeting.
What’s all that about?
Nobody waxes lyrical about their hiking boots or a pair of loafers, but you can
fill a book with sassy quotes about the transforming magic of high heels. Who,
looking on, can’t help but wonder? Especially since he’ll have had it drummed into
him from birth that he mustn’t even think about trying on a pair of these himself.
But I did think about it. Not obsessively, it wasn’t a fixation this curiosity about
heels, but rather something I’d be reminded of from time to time – some random look
or style would strike a chord and I’d find myself wishing once again that it were open
to me to give those a try sometime without it being made into a big deal, fraught with
connotations and sweeping assumptions that have nothing to do with me.
In my heart of hearts, I didn’t feel the least bit less masculine for wanting to try
wearing heels, no inner doubts about identity or gender, just a fidgety longing to
break out of a buttoned-down persona that didn’t fit me, and I was tired of living up to.
Here was the ultimate breakaway. Heels looked fun, stylish, a challenge – just how tricky is it to walk in those things anyway? Now, at last, I was going to find out.
Placing a steadying hand on the table, I rose cautiously to my feet. As I did I
could feel a subtle forward shift in my centre of gravity, an unaccustomed elevation
and a kind of tippy-toe poise.
And then a kind of sheepish exhilaration: I’m in heels!
First impression? It’s like being in ice skates for the first time – something of
the same precariousness and feeling of detachment from the ground. But at the
same time very different, too. Skates are low and level and innocent of any
connotations other than graceful winter sport. These are lofty, as steeply pitched as a
church spire, and project an assertiveness I can feel from the floor up. These could
definitely make one feel empowered – assuming you could master the art of walking
in them, that is.
That remained to be seen. I set off for the far side of the kitchen, mindful of
the advice I’d read in those how-to-walk-in-high-heels articles: take shorter steps,
walk heel-to-toe, keep your head up, your shoulders back, and don’t bend your
knees. Again, a bit like skating; maintain your posture. I arrived at the counter in
good order, performed a cautious three-point turn, then walked in the same stately
manner back to my starting point.
There! My first steps in heels!
Nothing to it!
Well, no, not quite that, but no harder than starting out in ice skates.
Fascinated, I spent the next hour or so practicing, trying to get the hang of
this. It was kind of fun and curiously addictive too, like a party trick you couldn’t quite
get right but couldn’t resist trying over and over again. I puttered about the kitchen,
washed, dried, and put away the breakfast dishes, tidied up, then brewed a pot of
coffee and drank a cup standing by the window – another of the tips from those how-
to-walk-in-heels articles I’d read: try simply standing in heels, having lunch, reading a
magazine, doing whatever, the idea being to develop a feel for the poise and balance
involved. Indeed, as I stood and watched the world go by, I could feel myself settling
in, the loft and pitch of my heels becoming familiar.
I could feel it in my calf muscles too. Who knew that wearing stilettos could be
such a good workout? I’m fairly fit from all the cycling I do, but my cyclist’s calves
weren’t used to this sort of isometric exercise: being flexed, shortened, held in this
tensed tippy-toe position for long periods of time, all the while having to make
countless twitches of microbalance to keep me upright atop towering stiletto heels. I
found myself smiling and thinking: who needs the gym? If it’s cold and rainy outside
and I don’t feel like going out and tackling hills on my bike, just walk around in these
for an hour or two in the warm and dry.
Achy calves aside, I flattered myself that I wasn’t doing badly for a beginner. If
I wasn’t exactly moving with catwalk grace, I wasn’t newborn Bambi either. At the
very least I was getting the acoustics right, even if the click-click-click of my stiletto
heels on the hardwood floor sounded more ironic to my ears than assertive.
And so began my first day in heels. Mainly, I wore them sitting down, working
at my kitchen table, finishing a magazine story. In fairness, that’s probably how most
high heels are worn, especially stilettos: by women working in offices and
boardrooms, seated at desks or around conference tables, not out pounding the
pavement, logging their ten-thousand steps a day. You don’t see many nurses,
factory hands, warehouse workers, or mail carriers gadding about in stilettos. That’s
not what they’re for.
Even seated, though, I was never unaware that I was in heels. They were a
presence in my mind as well as on my feet. Some of it was excitement, the novelty.
I’d always wanted to try wearing high heels and now at last I was daring to do it and – and hey, guess what? – the sky wasn’t falling in. The earth was continuing to spin. And I was still me, except now I was being me in heels.
I rather liked wearing them. It was fun. How much of this satisfaction came
from defiance – a revival of my old schoolboy love of playing hooky and thumbing my
nose at overweening authority and arbitrary rules – is hard to say. That was certainly
part of it, but there was more to it than that. I felt curiously at ease in my heels:
gratifyingly edgy, no less masculine, just not threatened by their perceived femininity
either.
Out of curiosity, I went to the bedroom and took a look at myself in the full
length mirror. After the momentary startlement at seeing myself feminised in stilettos,
I took a second, more dispassionate look. If one was to take a photograph of the
image I saw in the mirror and crop it so that only the lower half were visible, the legs
in jeans and stiletto boots, the assumption would be, given the heels, that those were
a woman’s legs. On that basis, there’s nothing startling here at all. It’s only the
revelation that it’s actually a man wearing those boots that’s startling, not the look
itself. Take away that and all other things being equal, I didn’t look bad in heels.
It was just unexpected, and this jostling of our sensibilities triggers a response
and raises our hackles. We humans like predictability, everything falling into
preconceived well-established patterns. We don’t like being jarred out of our bubbles, and we don’t like being the cause of our friends being jarred out of their bubbles either. And so, grudgingly or otherwise, we sacrifice our idiosyncrasies for what we
convince ourselves is the common good – but is that really good?
I wondered.
When I first gave myself permission to do this, curiosity drew me to read
fashion magazines, style columns and bloggers as a kind of tentative step across the
boundary – one from which I could easily retreat. I’d never read fashion before.
Thirty years of magazine journalism and here was a round that was entirely foreign
to me. Much of it was fluff but all of it was new. Links from one story or blog post
would lead on to another, either in similar vein or off on a tangent. I followed them an
like a trail of breadcrumbs they led me deeper into this bright, cheery, alien world of
high-heel fashion.
Sheepish but intrigued – my travel writing self loving the foreignness of it – I
learned to tell my slingbacks from my mules and recognised about a dozen different
types of heel. I read interviews with the likes of Christian Louboutin and Manolo
Blahnik – designers whose names were vaguely familiar, in a background sort of
way, but which until then had meant nothing more to me than the names of rap stars.
Reading on, casting my nets wider, I acquired a familiarity with whole new
field of pop culture. I learned that it was a French designer named Roger Vivier who
popularised the stiletto heel with the shoes he designed for Christian Dior’s autumn
collection in 1953, and how ten years later it was this same Vivier who reimagined
boots as chic fashion accessories instead of clunky winter wear, with the thigh-high
boots he created for Yves Saint Laurent. Inspired by the cuissardes work by
musketeers in the 17 th century, they were given enduring 20 th century street cred with
an iconic photo of Brigid Bardot wearing them astride a Harley.
And I read with interest how another French designer, Andre Courrèges,
tapped into the Swinging Sixties zeitgeist in 1964 with his saucy white go-go boots –
sales of which were given a huge boost across the Atlantic by Nancy Sinatra’s hit
single These Boots Were Made For Walkin’.
I loved the period photos that accompanied these stories, and this mingling
of music, film, current events, and fashion. It all fitted together into a fascinating
cultural mosaic and posed challenging questions. I’m a writer. Why should I feel
compelled to be ignorant of part of that picture? As though my masculinity ad identity
rested upon it. Why should I feel sheepishness in knowing that Vivier designed the
stiletto for Christian Dior’s ’53 collection, but not about, say, knowing that Bill
Hickman was the name of the stunt driver behind the wheel of the ’68 Dodge
Charger in the iconic car chase in Bullitt and that he did the chase scene in the
French Connection as well.
Something else I noticed too as I explored the world of fashion. As a writer, I
take a professional interest in words. One that cropped up frequently in these glitzy
articles on fashion and heels was ‘fun’ – used adjectivally, as in a fun new look, a fun
style, or a fun pairing. Fun is not a word you associate with men’s fashion. A fun new
tie? I don’t think so unless you’re getting your style cues from a novelty shop.
Men do not have fun with fashion. We’re all business, or supposed to be: no-nonsense styling, plain colours, sensible shoes. And always with an uneasy
watchfulness, anxious, and insecure.
Not on this side of the shop. Over here was where the party was.
So how come women get to be the cavaliers? And why must we always be
the puritans? Do we never get a holiday?
Only if we dare.
It was rather deflating to take my heels off at the end of the day, although I
could also understand better the point of view of those who dislike them – it’s
certainly easier to get around when you’re not inconvenienced by four-inch stilettos.
But I did like them, I have to admit. As I padded about making dinner that evening, I
couldn’t help smiling at the sight of them parked beside my hiking boots – the
Lamborghini beside the Land Rover, no longer feeling such a guilty secret.
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