CHANDELIERS FOR YOUR EARS!
They look fab. But oh, the agony of...
AS A heels girl for years I tottered across university cobbles in platforms, got stuck in cracks in the pavement in kitten heels or ran for buses in stilettoes.
When I worked in an office, I wore them every day. I have the chiropodist bills to prove it. Then, two years ago, I left to be a freelance writer working from home, which led, almost by accident, to my passion for earrings. At first I tried to keep up my shoe standards. But the truth is there is no call for L.K. Bennett patent nude platforms when you are sitting at a desk in the spare room, so out came the plimsolls, loafers, ballet pumps and trainers and all my work shoes languished in shoebags at the bottom of the wardrobe.
What a liberation it has been. The calluses, corns and blisters that had scarred my feet have faded. The spasms and cramps in my shins have stopped.
I am not alone in my disenchantment with heels. The fashion editors on the front rows — once all wearing sky-scraping Manolo Blahniks — now trot between catwalk shows in Chloe clogs, Gucci shearling slippers and even nike trainers.
But if my feet are no longer quite in glass slippers, then at least my ears are worthy of any fairy-tale ball. For when I gave up my heels, I developed a love for earrings. not discreet little pearl studs but serious, collargrazing sparklers. To avoid looking like Pat Butcher in her eastenders heyday the trick is to keep everything else — hair, make- up, neckline — minimal. I take my inspiration from women such as the formidable American editor Diana Vreeland who held readers of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue in thrall from the Thirties to the Seventies with her flat shoes, and ear janglers. She wore lavish, brilliantly coloured pendant earrings — always paste, never real gems — so long and dangling they trailed her collar-bone. Think, too, of the 95-year- old new York socialite and fashionista Iris Apfel. She has made jewellery her signature and takes a dim view of heels. ‘Those big platforms and insanely high heels. They look like an orthopaedist’s delight,’ she has said. ‘I don’t see anything beautiful about them.’
Then there is the cosmetics empress Helena rubinstein, who, the new Yorker magazine reported in the Twenties, had perfected the art of wearing all her jewellery at once.
She had a favourite pair of emerald cabochon clips and sat for her portrait in hanging clusters of pearls. The British society photographer Cecil Beaton told rubinstein he had never seen such a collection of jewels. She clicked her teeth and shrugged: ‘Only rubbish. Much more in Paris.’
My earring collection is relatively modest in comparison. A blue beaded pair from Portobello Market; paste pearls and false sapphires from a charity shop; resin daisies inherited from a friend; a glossy Marni black and bronze pair from The Outnet discount website; a pair of chandeliers in gold and coloured glass, a present for last birthday.
If I ever find myself missing the pinching pain of heels, well, the earrings are not without their suffer-to-be-beautiful agonies. They may look glorious, but, my goodness, the relief when I unclip them at the end of the evening. More than equal to the former pleasure of kicking off a pair of painful heels.