I was given a homework assignment by Alicia last week–to send her my favorite real or dream shoes. Oh the pressure.
See, I love shoes as much as the next girl. But when it comes to footwear I actually wear, I’ m very boring. For starters, I’m very cheap (compared to a true shoe fashionista). I’m also completely focused on comfort. My brands of choice (when they are on sale or clearance) are Naturalizer, Clarks, Aersoles and Easy Spirit. The colors? Black. Shades of brown. Most recently, red. Sometimes blue.
So to submit my “dream shoes” to Alicia, I decided to go to Zappos, and poke around. My first criteria was that it was a low, stable heel. There are comments on my choice, saying that tall girls can wear heels too. I totally agree. The taller the better. But this tall girl? Can’t wear heels. Between my back issues and my orthotics (honest, I’m 35, not 53), I physically can’t do it. Probably because I’ve never worn them for more than 15 minutes at a time.
See, I’m a tall girl in a family of women of shorter stature. When I was growing up, and I became aware of high heels, I was either told or naturally assumed the reason why you would wear high heels is because you wanted to be taller. It had nothing to do with fashion, nothing to do with how incredible your legs look between a sassy skirt and a curvy heel–it was pure function in my head. And since I’ve never “needed” to be any taller than 5’10”, I’ve never needed heels.
Tall girls, are you with me? Or is this just another misconception of my own personal childhood, filed away with putting butter on sandwhiches and pj’s under my pillow???