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The greatest mystery is in unsheathed reality itself.
— Eudora Welty
Unless there is a new mind there cannot be a new line, the old will go on repeating itself with recurring deadliness...
— William Carlos Williams |
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I can be reached at romanlily ~at~hotmail.com. Or you can join the notify list here. |
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September 5, 2004
What They Don't Tell You
It began innocently enough. Sunday afternoon. Running errands, a quick trip to the shoe store. Everyone’s all abuzz about this fall’s new round-toe shoes, right? Time to do a little shopping, pick up on what's current, right?
I’m normally not a trend-chaser, but I was in the market for a new pair of pumps anyhow. A conversation I had had with my friend Nikolle last spring had stuck with me all summer, reminding me that I’m again tempting severe discipline from the fashion police with the nondescript flats I tend to fall back on every autumn. (“No, no,” she said gently. "Flats are not a good idea. We do not want to look like Hillary Clinton.”)
So I dropped by the shoe store, ready to atone for past sins. At this store (DSW Shoe Warehouse, in Buckhead), they have about one million pairs of shoes on display at all times. It’s a warehouse-sized compound, with rows and rows and rows of shoes, all nicely organized by category and style. There are tons of shoes to choose from.
The first thing I came across was little number:
It was an inauspicious beginning to my shopping adventure. A pair of black leather dominatrix boots with metal stiletto heels, going for a mere $95.
I was shopping for myself, not Halle Berry, so I kept moving.
I next came across a pair of feisty little round-toe shoes that even Steven Cojocaru would have found acceptable:
Not bad. Could possibly work in an office situation. A bit girly, but whatever. A mostly-sensible pair of shoes.
Just one glaring problem: the heels.
High heels are the bane of my existence. This is where shoe shopping becomes an ordeal of Orwellian proportions. I get very serious very quickly when I feel like fashion is out to get me. Picking up a pair of shoes like this stirs up a tidal wave of feminist emotion. One minute, I'm thinking black or brown? and the next I'm considering an exercise in Thoreauvian disobedience, a one-woman picketing force on the sidewalk outside the store. High Heeled Shoes = Women in Chains! Haven't we come to amazing places as women in the past 50 years? Are we not stronger now than we have ever been? Yes, women, yes! So why are we still living in a world where 90% of women’s formal shoes come with ridiculous heels? Why do we wear these things? Also, why are we paying $150 to wear them?
There are practical considerations, too. Some things you just can’t tell about me from my website. One is that even in bare feet, I am just a hair under six feet tall. The other thing you can’t tell is that I actually like to walk.
Wholly incompatible with both of these facts, these shoes just sat on the rack and laughed at me.
All I want is a pair of decent-looking womens’ shoes that I could wear in good conscience to my mother-in-law’s house. I would like them to cost less than $100 and also not make me look any more Amazonian than I already am. Surely this is not too much to ask.
I was a tall women adrift in an ocean of high heels. Browsing the suddenly horrifying aisles, I remembered an article I had read recently in the New York Times:
"The current trend in fashion is very bad for women's feet," said Dr. Lloyd Smith, president of the American Podiatric Medical Association, who practices in Newton, Mass. "Superhigh heels with very narrow toes create problems and exacerbate existing conditions."
… High heels can be bad for wearers for several reasons, said Dr. Tzvi Bar-David, a doctor of podiatric medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.
An elevated heel lifts the foot out of its natural position and shortens the Achilles' tendon. Such shoes also pitch the weight of the body forward disproportionately onto the ball of the foot, which in turn upsets the stabilizing mechanics of the foot.
"High heels have a narrow area of contact and they point the toes downward, which puts the foot in an internally rotated position and makes their wearer more prone to spraining an ankle," Dr. Bar-David said.
… "When you start playing around with shoes that take away from the natural functions of your feet, you start to have problems," Dr. Bar-David said.
... Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys New York, had a simple... explanation for women's ability to wear the shoes they love...
"Women have a higher pain threshold," he said. "Men would not do this." [emphasis added]
Taking a deep breath, I kept looking.
I looked and looked, and found myself among the casual shoes. I scanned the rows of shoes and sprang with delight on the one pair that didn't come with five-inch heels:
After deeper reflection, I abandoned their dusty-blue charms, sensing that I just wasn't ready for the "scullerymaid on holiday" look.
The trip was a bust. I knew that it was no use in staying. Just for good measure, I decided to try on one pair of shoes, just to say I did. This pair from Chinese Laundry was the closest candidate I could find, a nice mix of sexy and professional, with just a modest kitten heel:
I slipped the new shoes on, ignoring their wicked bite into my heels, and attempted wobbly passage down the aisle.
I could only laugh out loud and toss my hands into the air. What they don't tell you when you are a little girl, training for your eventual life as a grown woman, is that some day someone will try to charge you $80 for a pair of office pumps with so much storage space in the toes that you can easily fit a cell phone, a rain jacket, and last night's leftover spaghetti!
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