10 ms·
When did men stop wearing high heels?
- masters3d 11y agoThe did not, they just call them cowboy boots.
- Nomentatus 11y agoI was just going to say, in that regard "1996 in my case."
- bryanlarsen 11y agoOr weightlifting shoes or Latin dance shoes
- dmckeon 11y agoFashion and style have their own internal logic. Extreme example: "pointy boots" in Mexico. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/26/395391623/wonderful-ridiculous-head-scratchingly-pointy-mexican-boots-are-now-a-designer-i http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/26/395391623/...
- Digit-Al 11y agoGoodness. Winklepickers taken to the extreme.
- benbreen 11y agoI've always found the history of fashion to be fascinating because of the light it throws on people's inner lives. A relevant quote from the diary of Samuel Pepys, where he proudly notes the date when he first attached buckles on his shoes (thereby announcing himself as a young gentleman on the rise): "Sunday 22 January 1660 To church in the afternoon to Mr. Herring, where a lazy poor sermon. And so home with Mrs. Turner and sitting with her a while we went to my father’s where we supt very merry, and so home. This day I began to put on buckles to my shoes, which I have bought yesterday of Mr. Wotton." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/01/22/ http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/01/22/
- throwaway94105 11y agoIt's too bad this got killed off the main page. I guess maybe it's not relevant to HN. Anyway, as a mid-20s straight man who likes wearing 5" stilettos, finding out the history of when and why men did and didn't do the same is interesting to me. As it is, the only time I feel comfortable wearing them out is during the Folsom Street Fair (and maybe Pride too but I feel that doing so might encourage assumptions of my being gay among viewers/my friends, which is not necessary bad, but just not a view of myself that I particular want to promote, as it is incorrect.) Finally, the two men who mentioned attempting to walk in them and failing make me somewhat disappointed; whether or not they expect women to wear heels, they probably generally enjoy it when they see a woman in heels and could get a much better appreciation for her efforts (especially if she's still out after an 8 hour day wearing them.) Edit: apparently it's not nuked off page 1. Could have sworn it was.
- lisper 11y ago> a mid-20s straight man who likes wearing 5" stilettos Not to be judgmental, just out of honest intellectual curiosity, can you explain the appeal? Because I totally don't get it.
- arbitrage 11y agoThey look nice, I want to look nice. They feel powerful, I want to feel powerful. Men's shoes are boring, I don't want to be boring. That's the appeal for me. Everyone is different, though.
- the_mitsuhiko 11y ago> They look nice, I want to look nice. They feel powerful, I want to feel powerful. Men's shoes are boring, I don't want to be boring. I'm sorry, but that makes very little sense. If you want to look nice then you need to go by what society judges as nice and society does not consider a man with heels to "look nice".
- throwaway94105 11y ago
- hellbanner 11y agoRelated: How USA women smoking moved from taboo to popular through media manipulation: https://vimeo.com/111346364 https://vimeo.com/111346364 "Attractive women wearing skirts sat in a park mid-day. At precisely noon, they all lit cigarettes. Press, who had been told by Bernays to watch for something interesting, snapped pictures.. cigarette companies now doubled their consumer base"
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoEdward Bernays truly was a morally ambiguous vanguard. His 1928 book Propaganda is just as relevant and chilling a tract 87 years later.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoNot really seeing the ambiguous part.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoWhat are you trying to imply?
- stefantalpalaru 11y agoThat he was bad to the bone.
- benihana 11y agothat you used the wrong adjective to describe someone
- sliverstorm 11y agoI don't think they had to work that hard. Cigarettes check a lot of boxes - oral fixation, the way the smoke moves, the whole concept of a style accessory(1)... it has panache that alcohol certainly can't match. (I don't know the proper name for it, but the idea of one object as part of your person that draws attention, kind of like how a good photograph needs a focal point that naturally draws the eyes)
- aikah 11y agoat least not until the cramps were over.
- Tharkun 11y agoCan't say I particularly care about what people wear. But I have an interest in footwear and how it relates to human location. In short: heels are bad. The higher they are, the worse. You have a heel in your foot. It's more than adequate. Feel free to wear whatever you want, but when it comes to footwear, some things are best avoided if you want to stay in good working order.
- copperx 11y agoMy personal theory has been that, because height has so much power influence (e.g., tall people are better paid[1], have better sexual prospects), boosting one's potential power can be seen as dishonest. [1]: http://www.timothy-judge.com/Height%20paper--JAP%20published.pdf http://www.timothy-judge.com/Height%20paper--JAP%20published...
- icebraining 11y agoUnless you're hiding them, I don't see how it's dishonest, particularly if not used with that particular intention. I'm sure clean-looking people are better regarded as well, does that make regular bathing dishonest?
- Dewie3 11y agoHah, dishonest. First of all it's no more dishonest than dressing up in other ways, with clothes or make up or what have you. Secondly if people are "impressed" or whatever by the stature you project what does it matter if it is "real" or not? Is the experience diminished because they didn't happen to be "born" with that stature? If we're going to rationalize things like that, you might as well go into why you think someone being born with genes that facilitate a certain height is more "impressive" than someone who isn't so tall, naturally. If you feel that someone being tall projects "power" or something, then what does it matter for that visceral moment that they were born with it or not? You're going to give a person a raise for projecting a certain stature, but get upset when a person happened to be not-so tall?
- nailer 11y agoI went looking for heel supports for weightlifting recently. I found out there are a lot of men who apparently wear very high heel supports to boost their height - obviously not the same as wearing a high healed shoe from the outside, but the same from the inside.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoYou should look into Olympic weightlifting shoes. (I'm assuming you were looking for shoe add-ons)
- nailer 11y agoYeah that's what I ended up getting. Was thinking about doubling down (my ankle flexibility sucks and I've been working on it for two years)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Stratoscope 11y agoSince we're sharing our high heel stories, here's Truetone Stratoscope from 1972: http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/86712900 http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/86712900 I had a whole collection of hippie outfits back in the day. My mom thought I was gay, but I just liked colorful clothing. Back then, you were straight or you were weird - where "straight" meant "didn't do drugs"... I was proud to be weird! I got my hippie nickname from the back of an old radio I saw at a garage sale: Equipped with Truetone Stratoscope Eliminates aerial and ground https://www.google.com/search?q=truetone+stratoscope&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=truetone+stratoscope&tbm=isc... Here's a photo from five years later when I took my mom flying: http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 http://www.pbase.com/geary/image/120224799 This was more of my disco phase, I suppose. I have very fond memories of the young lady who made the flying wings necklace for me! :-) And I still had some kind of eye for color - I didn't notice until a couple of years ago that I'd totally color-coordinated my clothes with the airplane!
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoI don't think there's been a better fashion subculture than the hippies.
- walshemj 11y agoI think the Mods and the Zoot Suiters would probably win in the fashion stakes.
- agumonkey 11y agoFirst pictures feels like taken from a Beatles music video.
- EliRivers 11y agoHere's a photo from five years later when I took my mom flying I am digging those trousers, dude. Looks like you had some kind of primitive instagram equipment too. Far out.
- stefantalpalaru 11y agoSome still do: http://image.excite.it/politica/foto/BerlusconiSarkozy-chi-vince-la-lotta-al-rialzo/1-berlusconisarkozy01.jpg http://image.excite.it/politica/foto/BerlusconiSarkozy-chi-v... There's also the hidden inner platform for when you already maxed out the acceptable visible heel: http://www.scarpeconrialzo.it/it/information/struttura-delle-nostre-scarpe http://www.scarpeconrialzo.it/it/information/struttura-delle...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ianstallings 11y agoIt's strange to me, this arbitrary decision to lift yourself a few more inches from the ground by basically wearing little stilts on your shoes.
- krapp 11y agoIt's no more or less arbitrary than going to work with a silk noose around your neck.
- saalweachter 11y agoSilk napkin, technically.
- elektromekatron 11y agoSurely it is a lead, given it attaches round a collar.
- infinitone 11y agoOr silk leash.
- wtetzner 11y agoIn fact ties seem weirder. Heels increase height, ties just...well, they're just there.
- droidist2 11y agoWhy would you turn women away for not wearing heels? I never understood the appeal of them. I'm actually very attracted to women who wear skirts with sneakers.
- ibejoeb 11y agoI doubt it's as ridiculous as the article makes it sound, but I'm not familiar with this story. It sounds like hired security was told what the dress code was and was overzealous. Evening dress at Cannes is black tie. Women's formal shoes tend to be heels. Rhinestone flats really are not black tie appropriate. I think a sensible analogy, for men, is straight tie vs. bowtie. You're asking for trouble if you forego the bowtie. Likewise, I think a man wearing heels will also be turned away. If folks have a problem with this, then I can think of no better crowd to dictate what is appropriate dress than the Hollywood elite, so I suspect this will resolve itself without much ado.
- thret 11y agoHeels accentuate the legs. I agree though, there's something very attractive about a woman in slacks, sneakers, and a loose-fitting Guns-N-Roses tshirt.
- gilgoomesh 11y agoI'm 6'4" and my wife is 5'2". I really like it when she wears heels. For us, they have a very practical appeal. Of course, the last thing I need is to wear high heels myself.
- taivare 11y agoI remember pimps in 'C'town in the late 60's when they walked at night sometimes sparks would fly off their high heels from the metal protectors..
- afarrell 11y agoAs a contra dancer, I actually find that about an inch of heel elevation in a shoe adds about a +1 or so skill bonus.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tenfingers 11y agoFashion is weird. Throughout history and cultures, man/women clothing changed and still changes wildly. It's a bit sad that in western culture there's such a strong bias between sexes in clothing, were each sex has his own set of "acceptable" uniforms. With feminism women gained much more freedom in that regard, but men don't have much choice. It's not unthinkable that while men tend not to care, there are men that also like pretty/colorful/different things, irregardless of their sexual preferences, but simply abstain to express due to social pressure.
- soup10 11y agoI don't really buy it, while men are expected to put a masculine spin on things, they still have lots of freedom in their fashion choices, most just choose to abstain out laziness or because they don't like drawing attention to themselves.
- tenfingers 11y agoJust to pick an obvious, big one: there is no choice besides pants. More subtle? try lace, but without giving a sexual orientation connotation to it. Color choices seem to be more neutral now, but only for older segment of the population. Under 10 years of age pink is definitely not well seen for boys, but blue is "ok" for girls to wear for an outsider.
- rodelrod 11y agoThe little girl on a leach is the future Louis XV, by the way. More information on the Wallace Collection website: http://www.museumnetworkuk.org/portraits/artworks/wallace/img5.html http://www.museumnetworkuk.org/portraits/artworks/wallace/im...
- Grue3 11y agoI believe Putin still wears high heels, as well as other vertically-challenged dictators.