A low opinion on high heels
NICOLE ELPHICK Last updated 13:20 23/03/2012
OPINION: At last week's L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival several models walking the runway ditched their skyscraper platform stilettos mid-strut - and earned themselves a verbal slap on the wrist from festival CEO, Graeme Lewsey who said "I'm so disappointed".
But if I'd been in attendance I probably would've given them a standing ovation in gratitude for the warning.
After all, if the models who are paid to wear the shoes can't even handle the heights, why on earth would we as consumers be interested in buying them?
Nowadays heels are bound up with notions of femininity, but back in the French Renaissance both the men and women of the upper classes donned them, hence the phrase 'well heeled'.
King Louis XIV reportedly wore heels decorated with battle scenes (how manly!) and decreed no one could wear heels higher than his own.
With the invention of the stiletto in the early fifties cementing the heel's place in women's fashion, heights have risen and fallen - mainly risen - with style trends.
But over the past decade or so it has felt like there's been an unspoken race between designers to scale ever more precarious heights, finally culminating in Alexander McQueen's Spring 2010 armadillo shoes - a towering pair of curved ten-inch heels favoured by Lady Gaga - which caused a few seasoned models to choose not to walk the McQueen show as they considered them a health and safety issue.
Shoes should not be like cigarettes, a threat to your personal wellbeing!
And once they've reached the height where they render you almost immobile they are no longer even serving their basic function.
Medical professionals have issued countless warnings about how high heels wreck your feet, legs and back, yet still they stubbornly remain on the catwalk before trickling down to the local mall.
There've been many reasons posited for the continued love affair with the high heel. They elongate your legs. They encourage a sexier wiggle in your walk. They give a taller and thinner silhouette.
And I get it, I really do. Some outfits do just look better with a pair.
For the Bradshaws of the world who love to wear them (especially the lucky ones who don't find them excruciatingly painful after strolling longer than, I don't know, ten minutes) I take no issue.
But, personally, I just can't wear them anymore. I've reached the point where good fashion design isn't just about something that looks lovely, the object should also serve its purpose, namely to allow me to walk comfortably without dirtying my precious feet with the muck of this cold, cruel world.
When I see a beautiful pair of very high heels I no longer think "Pretty!", I just think "Ouch!"
And then I wish the designer would've figured out a way to keep the beautiful elements of that design but accommodate them in a heel that wouldn't put the wearer at risk of vertigo.
Gorgeous as Rodarte's recent sand filled heels are, it does seem it would've been possible to execute the same concept but at a less than 45 degree angle (my personal cut-off point if I want to participate in fancy activities like walking.)
I'm constantly on the lookout for aesthetically acceptable flat or gently inclined shoes simply because they are damn hard to find - why aren't more being designed?
It seems strange that when I go into a shoe store I see mainly heels or platform wedges, but when I look around at what women are actually wearing on an average day 90 per cent are in flats.
What happens to all these dizzying heels? Are they bought and end up gathering dust in closets overlooked day after day for sandals or Converse? Are they consigned to the bargain bin at the end of the season before the cycle starts again? It's a mall mystery I've never been able to solve.
And while I would like to think revolution is afoot in the form of Acne's cult Pistol boot or last year's Prada flatforms (or at least whatever chain store form that I can actually afford), the LMFF catwalk is just another reminder that the fashion tide doesn't yet seem to have swung against the super high heel.
Meanwhile, I'll comfort myself with the thought that what goes up, must eventually come down.
-Daily Life
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/fashion/6626865/A-low-opinion-on-high-heels?comment_msg=posted#post_commentOnce upon a time I used to watch with amusement all the women dressed to the nines whereing tatty sneakers and carry their heels in a bag walking to and from the bus stop.
These days shoes have gotten so bad that even MrSp keeps his good looking but less than robust or comfortable dress shoes at work while whereing tatty sports shoes walking to and from.
All my kids want are shoes that meet the school uniform code (no sports shoes) that are comfortable and able to stand up to over 4km of walking daily for 6-12 months. 
