‘Heels are hard to buy in sizes for men. There’s a reason for that. Most won’t wear them...’
IT’S almost laughable that in the 21st century a woman taking off her heels is headline news. How very dare she? What an act of mutiny!
When Twilight actress Kristen Stewart kicked off her heels and walked barefoot on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival she was breaking the rules in a world that still tells women what to wear and when.
For all the ludicrously hopeful claims that attitudes to women will be being changed by social media tags like #metoo, we live in a time when women are expected to dress in a certain way, just as they were in Victorian times. Yes, the corsets and bustles have gone, but there are still strict dress codes that require damaging and restricting your body. And one of those codes is the high heel.
It’s hard to imagine a more painful instrument of torture. I toyed with them in my late teens and 20s, but gave up after bunions, torn ligaments, blisters, back pain and aching feet seemed too high a price to pay.
Being 5ft 2in I fully appreciate the opportunity to stand a little taller, but the problem with heels is that – apart from all the associated health problems – you risk falling over in them.
Ask Naomi Campbell, who is among those who have famously taken a tumble on the catwalk. But there can be few women who have ever worn heels who haven’t fallen over in them,
Kristen Stewart, a member of this year’s jury at the film festival, arrived on the red carpet in a pair of black Louboutin heels.
But before going in to the premiere screening of the Spike Lee film BlacKkKlansman, she kicked them off to walk up the stairs barefoot.
Reports said she was “not sanctioned” for taking off her heels.
Last year the actress, who is known to wear trainers with dresses on the red carpet, caused a stir by proclaiming: “You cannot ask me to wear heels.”
What is extraordinary is not that she said this, but that she felt the need to say it.
“There’s definitely a distinct dress code, right?” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “People get very upset if you don’t wear heels or whatever.
“I feel like you can’t ask people that any more – it’s a given. If you’re not asking guys to wear heels and a dress, you cannot ask me either.”
Too right, Kristen. Said like a true vampire. Get your teeth into this one. Scare them a bit more.
To get an idea of what it feels like, boys, try walking around on your tip toes all day long. That’s if you can’t try a real pair on.
Heels are hard to buy in sizes for men. There’s a reason for that. Most won’t wear them.
They’re uncomfortable. Very. I know some men like to wear dresses and heels but, let’s face it, if it’s choice and just for one evening, that’s very different to being told, or expected, to wear them for hours and hours, on special occasions or at work.
Women are still valued for their looks in a society which has a set code on what those looks should be.
And you will never get it right. Be modest in a veil and you will be labelled a terrorist, show off too much flesh and you’re a slut. And as for refusing to wear heels at red carpet events – well, that is simply insurgency.
Women should totter on heels that render them prey rather than predator. It makes their legs look nice, apparently. Heels are as impractical for day-to-day wear as the satin slippers worn by women in the 18th century – which at least had the bonus of being flat.
It’s no surprise, really, that society has used footwear to oppress women through history – from the bound feet of China, to the satin slippers that keep you inside where you can’t do anything naughty, to the disablingly high heels of today – all of them stop women physically.
Hollywood is always slow to catch up with the real mood of real people outside of Tinsel town.
La La Land will probably not care less that Kristen has dared not only to kick off her heels but then walk barefoot and later sport slip-on loafers at Cannes.
What we need now is more women stars to have the courage to speak out and select footwear out of choice not pressure to conform.
If women, or men, want to teeter along on spikes, so be it.
They can be very useful when standing on the toes of people telling you what to wear.
Another good use is for smashing the corner of a window if you are shut in a burning building (a fireman wearing big, comfortable and practical boots once gave me that tip).
Apparently a hefty tap on the corner of a pane of glass with a spiked stiletto breaks it in a safer way than hurling a vase through it in panic. So, there, now you know. There are uses for high heels.