Like most girls, the first pair of heels I’ve tried on were my mom’s. My initial introduction to those painful beauties was done in a traditionally sneaky fashion—while scouring my mom’s shoe collection behind her back, for a pair that I could only wear in my dizziest childhood dreams.
I set my eyes on a strappy gold wedge number that she personally designed. The moment I placed my foot in the glitzy shoe, I felt like I had finally gotten a taste of what it’s like to be a woman. I was instantly taller. I felt sophisticated. A gold shoe is definitely more mature than the hot pink Babrbie sneakers I lived in and often paired with cycling shorts (it was the early 90s). It boasted of gold fabric straps that wrapped around the foot and had to be tied into a careful knot at the ankles. There is a hint of sexuality that comes with wearing high heels, the way it draws attention to what people may think of as an erogenous zone. It’s not just a wedge; it’s sex appeal you can wear and little girls should only don such sensual things in the secret alleys of their mother’s closets.
When we’re young and several years short of puberty, we wonder about all these aspects that come with being grown up: wearing a bra, getting married, putting on high heeled pumps as you get ready for work.
But as soon as age gives us the license to wear the coveted classic black pump, platform sandal or pointy knee-high boots, our fashion fetish starts to betray us. We get burning soles while dancing at our first high school party; we suffer from blisters on prom night; we walk painfully in shoes we especially purchased for a college interview because, damn, we couldn’t find the admissions office in that impossibly large campus!
Just as the promise of independence and financial freedom in adulthood is muddled by the harsh realities that come with achieving these, high heels come with a price and the price of aesthetics and fashion-forwardness is red, swollen feet.
Left: Killer Heels from the Fetish exhibition of designer Christian Loubutin and director, David Lynch.
This is when we begin to suffer from High Heel Schizophrenia, whilst we shift from loving to hating our footwear.
Because as soon as we remove those studded strappy platforms and soak our raw toes in tubs of steaming water, we start to love our high heels again, as slowly as the pain melts away with the heat of our soapy foot bath.
In the meantime, our critics watch us fall in and out of love with our shoes, calling us fashion victims. “You should wear what makes you good!” they exclaim. “If it’s a choice between fashion and comfort, I’d rather go with the latter!” they declare. “But what if a gold pointy pump with a height of 4 ½ inches makes me feel good?” I reply.
They may as well call us the battered wives, married to that masochist called style.
Is there any way to save this marriage? Yes! While we may often feel like our shoes wear us instead of us wearing it, it’s possible to find a middle ground where both heels and heels-owner can be happy. Nowadays, there are a myriad of products that make shoes easier to bare. I’d also like to note that even those relatives of heels (ballet flats, thong sandals) can also be a pain sometimes. But with a few helpful gel inserts, padded foam insoles and even the occasional stretching process done by a professional shoe repair service, we can wear our heels and enjoy it too. I’ve also learned to choose my footwear based on what I’ll be doing for the day or sometimes I bring an extra pair of flats that will still go well coordinated with my outfit. On some days, I even slip my feet into a comfy pair of Chuck Taylors—it adds playful irony amidst my collection of dressy footwear.
While I think that shoe-induced pain is not about to go away (especially with every brand-new, un-broken shoe), in this blog, it is my goal to share experiences on how fashion shouldn’t be entirely about suffering and taking charge of your wardrobe is just one simple way of empowering your style persona because no matter what you say, the way we look will always have an impact on how we are perceived by other people.
And when all else fails and your double strapped mary janes still manages to hurt you, it won’t hurt to detach yourself from them and go barefoot even for a while.
