She was gazing at her face, not her feet. Two years later, back in that clearance aisle at DSW, my husband asked me, “Are you really going to let her buy those?” Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I chose not to reply, and he walked out of the store.Īs I explained to my husband later, I told Avy yes because I saw the look on our daughter’s face as she preened in that full-length mirror. Mostly, though, she got kindhearted comments from grown women who enjoyed her spirit, admired her confidence, and who commiserated and agreed when she admitted the shoes were a bit painful - but totally worth it. On both occasions, she got a few quizzical looks. Twice - once out to dinner, and once to see a play in the city. Ultimately, I gave our daughter the go-ahead, after my husband ceded the decision to me. While I certainly did not want my preteen leaving the house in stripper heels, I was having trouble making a solid case against it. When that argument failed miserably, we found ourselves tossing out words like “cheap,” “easy,” and “wrong impression” - even explaining about “ladies of the night,” for god’s sake. “They’re just not…appropriate,” my husband and I harmonized, pointing out the risk of broken ankles and ripped tendons. “Give me three good reasons why not!” our master-negotiator-since-birth retorted. “No you’re not,” my husband and I chorused in response. “I’m wearing these out to dinner tonight!” “OMG! I love them! I look amazing!” Avy declared the next afternoon as she clicked across our hardwood floors in her new kicks. My husband shot me a “WTF?!” look - a look that failed to evaporate when I confessed I’d pre-approved the gift. When Avy was 11, for Christmas, my sister-in-law wrapped up a pair of shiny black 6-inch peep-toe stilettos that her daughter had been enthralled with at Avy’s age.īy the look on my daughter’s face, you’d have thought there were a dozen puppies stuffed into that shoebox. This wasn’t our first brush with the land of towering heels. Resisting the urge to put out my hand to assist her, I watched as she carefully stood and edged toward the full-length mirror, where the preening began. “Do not say anything!” my daughter grinned mischievously when she spotted me above her, a dreamy expression plastered across her face. My husband and son, also in tow, naively headed toward the cash register.Ī quick search of the store found Avy sprawled on the floor in the clearance section, tenderly strapping on five-inch, slingback cork wedge sandals with thick black straps, shiny gold buckles, and a small round peep toe. She was pro I was con.Ī few weeks later, our trek to DSW for back-to-school tennis shoes started out serenely enough. We had been arguing over the “appropriateness” of sky-high heels for two years already. However, given the advantages that height supposedly confers from higher pay to increased desirability as well as the long history of men in heels, the real question is why don’t the majority of men wear heels today? Indeed, the most curious thing about men in heels may be our current cultural distress over the subject.When my fashionista daughter got a $40 gift card to DSW for her 13th birthday, I knew the stage had been set for battle. For most men, however, even an extra inch of a pair of business brogues can provide highly destabilizing and call their masculinity and their judgement into question. It in fact, there are some lifestyles where heels have remained central to expressions of masculinity and are worn without raising eyebrows the rugged cowboy in heeled boots is the perfect example. Even after heels fell out of men’s fashion in the 18th century, there have been moments when they have been reintegrated into the male wardrobe – not as a ways of challenging masculinity but rather as a means of proclaiming it. When heels were first introduced into Western fashion around the turn of the 17th century, men eagerly embraced them and they continued wearing heels as expressions of power and prestige for over 130 years. Today, the thought of a man in heels is met with disbelief and conjures up notions of transgression.
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