It just seems like a trend will come out and at first it’s awesome, cute, and so clever, and then the masses get their hands on it and cheapen the experience. All of a sudden, you see seventeen versions of the thing and the market is saturated with it. It’s like an awesome song that gets overplayed so much that you hate it.
At five foot eight I am just medium tall. For whatever reason, the place that I grew up in was full of short people. I was at least three inches taller than all of my friends. My mother drilled into my head that being tall was burden (she’s five foot ten) and you should never be taller than your man. Having this drilled into my brain my whole life, and since the boys had not hit their growth spurts yet, I wore a lot of flat shoes and pencil heels in high school.
The first question I asked my future mother-in-law when she was trying to set me up with her son was “How tall is he?” He’s six two. I wore four inch Fluevogs when we got married. I love so much that I could be six feet tall and still be shorter than him. My wedding shoes are some of my most treasured things.
I never really embraced the high heel until after high school. My first boyfriend after I graduated was six foot one. It was like a whole new universe was being opened up to me!! Wearing heels made my feet look smaller! I could use my height to intimidate people! Being tall was an asset and I could be so much taller!! There are so many cute shoes out there! I went through this phase of dating taller and taller and taller guys. I topped out at six foot eight. It was so nice to feel small compared to them and to be able to be as tall as I wanna be. I love it when people meet me at work (especially men) as I’m sitting at my desk. As I stand to shake their hands, their heads go up, up and uuuuup. O, you’re a tall one! They say. Did you play basketball? Is another one I get a lot.
Like I said, I’m not that tall, but I am taller than average. My love for high heels increases my height by at least three inches making me five eleven so I guess if you take into consideration that I spend a good chunk of my time in tall shoes, I am rather tall.
Initially, three inch heels were considered really high, a stiletto, but now three inches is average. My four inch wedding heels were rare fifteen years ago, but now they’re the norm. At first, platforms on a pump would be an inch thick max, now they are one to two inches on average. I just bought a pair of wedge sandals that were five and a half inches high. I couldn’t find anything that didn’t have a platform that was cute. I’m not interested in wearing old lady sandals, but those seem to be the only ones that don’t have a two inch platform. I’m also not interested in being over six feet tall. It’s bad enough that I tower over half the people I know, I don’t have to tower over the rest of them. I don’t really want to look like a drag queen.
It’s all fine and good for these five foot nothing reality television “stars” to wear these enormous spiky platform-y “open for business” shoes, but now they’ve become so popular, that it’s hard to find a flat. Have you ever seen a pair of those shoes in a nine or ten? They look like they were made for men who like to look pretty.
My favourite is when I see pregnant moms with their toddlers in tow at church in five inch patent leather spike heeled peep toe platforms. Sorry, sister, but your knee length skirt and modest cleavage covering camisole under your low cut blouse does not cancel out your street-walker shoes. I can’t judge – all my shoes look like that too, I’m just not pregnant and don’t have to carry around a diaper bag any more.
The first time I went to a drag show I commented to my friend afterwards about how much fun it was and how ‘the gays’ were so friendly and personable and how I had never been touched so much or asked to dance so many times in a straight club. You know what he told me? “Well, there were a lot of convincing looking females here tonight, perhaps they were trying to determine if you were real or not.” Nice. Thanks. Idonotlooklikeadragqueen.
Let’s tone it down, people. The tall girls need something to wear that doesn’t make them hit their head on the doorway. What’s next? Real stilts?
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