A brilliant guide to wearing high heels
WHAT a nightmare for the directors, producers, cinematographers, key grips and best boys. What a wretched disappointment for the stars, ingenues, character actors and supporting cast. Despite the vision, imagination, multimillion pound investments, hope, prayer, blood, sweat and tears involved in creating the movies unveiled for the judges’ delectation at the Cannes Film Festival, the only thing anyone will remember about the event is the women banned from the red carpet for wearing flat shoes.
No matter said flats were sparkling with individually applied rhinestones. No matter said flats were hand- crafted, exquisitely tooled in intricately inlaid leather. No matter if the women wearing them were famous and fabulous. The diktat was that women should be in formal attire and in Cannes that means vertiginous heels.
Suddenly we were plunged into simultaneous private and public debate. In public we were adamant. Those of us who wouldn’t dream of flip- flopping to the shops, don’t leave our abodes without a slick of lipstick and an artfully faux- casually arranged scarf, not to mention a touch of back- combing and spray of product in our hair, were fundamentally “for” the Cannes fashion dictators. Of course, we said, the red carpet is no place for flats. We wouldn’t shuffle to our children’s weddings in Dr Scholl’s. We wouldn’t pad into an important job interview in brogues.
Only in high heels is it possible to glide in an appropriately elegant manner. Hang the corns. Ignore the bunions. Endure the pain. Suck up the blisters. Red carpet appropriate fashion must and will always involve high heels.
Those of us who pull on a pair of Converse trainers for funerals and slop about in Uggs at the office loudly proclaimed a vociferously different view. How disrespectful, we declared, to admit or refuse a woman on the basis of her footwear. Where were we, we wondered, Cannes or 18th- century China? Any minute on this basis, we’d revert to foot binding. Good Lord, we opined, some of these ladies are so eminent, Cannes is lucky to get them, even if they pitch up in cut- off denims and a cagoule. Imagine condemning George Clooney to walk the walk in pinching Jimmy Choos, we JANE FONDA says cosmetic surgery bought her another 10 years on the silver screen. Without it the 77- year- old would either have been forced to play wrinkled old crones or into early retirement. That’s fine for her, but where does it leave the rest of us?
Should we succumb to the allure of Botox and fillers in an attempt scoffed. No man such a thing.
However, in the private sanctity of our boudoirs, the sentiments were a tad different. Those of us who had passionately defended the insistence on red carpet heels, secretly admitted cherishing the blessed relief of taking off our instruments of torture – sometimes even in the street – and walking home
would
stand
for to ward off relegation to the Old Lady League? Should we slap on the moisturiser, drink plenty of water, sleep for eight hours a night, think virtuous thoughts and trust our genes to keep us youthful?
Or should we bite the bullet, save up the cash and go under the knife, knowing that our saggy bits will be chucked down the waste- disposal barefoot. Some of us recalled taking smart stilettoes on holiday only to spend the entire fortnight in blissful flip- flops.
Those of us who abhorred the demand to wear heels quietly acknowledge how much sexier and more libidinous we feel in heels, recalling occasions when we could easily have defended wearing flats but opted to wiggle sinuously and we will have ourselves firm jaw- lines, furrow- free foreheads and smoothly kissable cheeks? I’ll never say never, but right now at the ripe- for- surgery age of 53, frankly all options terrify me.
I’m scared of caving in, crinkling up and looking 150. I’m frightened of waking up from a face- lift with one eye pointing north, the other around in heels just to add to our desirability factor.
So there you have it. We love and hate our heels. We admire and detest the Cannes sticklers who took a stand.
We are alternately ashamed of and entranced by our shoe passion. The secret: buy towering heels, adore the look and wear them purely when… horizontal!
JANE WILL NEVER BE PLAIN ( THANKS TO COSMETIC SURGERY)
south and a weird Frankenstein monster expression I cannot shift.
I’ve seen so much iffy “work” ( one of my late mum’s pals now has a chin so pointed you could use it to cut cheddar) the whole idea is desperately daunting. Imagine if my beloved grand- baby couldn’t recognise me. Will I have surgery? Ask me again when I’m 63.