Heel, girls!

Why do TV shows feature women in impossibly high heels when flats are all the rage in real life?

As I binged on the first three episodes of the new season of The Morning Show, I was struck by one thing. Every woman on the show was depicted in sky-high stilettos. Now I can understand on-air anchors (Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon) being portrayed wearing vertiginous heels but I have been around in enough TV studios to know that production staff — who are on their feet all day — tend to wear flats, or even sneakers, to get through their day. So, this struck a rather jarring note, to say the least, in a show that purported to show the real world of morning television. 

And after that, I could not stop noticing the incongruous use of stilettos in other shows as well. The new season of The Split — a British legal show set in a firm of family lawyers — had Nicola Walker wearing 5 inch heels as she teetered around her office, attended depositions, went to court, and then to dinner with her family. No woman could survive a day like that in those heels in real life. In fact, if you took a walk around the Inns of Court in London, you would be hard pressed to find a single female lawyer in heels like these. They know better than to wreck their knees and backs by balancing precariously on heels all day. 

Nearer home, there were the ladies of Four More Shots Please. Dressed in the height of fashion, they vamped it up for their poster wearing — yes, you’re right! — slinky stilettos. And yet, if you were to look at the demographic they represent, you will find that in real life they are more likely to be rocking Converse sneakers, ballet flats or even funky wedges. Stilettos are seen as being as stale as last week’s bread by this generation. 

In fact, one of the reasons why the new reboot of Sex and The City, called And Just Like That, was considered out of tune with the times was because Sarah Jessica Parker and her co-stars seemed to live in their stilettos as they traipsed through the streets of New York City. How very 1990s, they critics scoffed, surely the ladies should have embraced the Zeitgeist’s new-found love for flats by now? The fact that they were stuck in the fashion mores of the decade in which they came of age, aged them much more than the wrinkles they had Botoxed away. 

The truth of the matter is that stilettos have had their day. A small minority of women may still favour them — think Melania and Ivanka Trump — but for the most part, women have tired of their charms. These days Hollywood stars take pride in wearing comfortable footwear on the red carpet. Julia Roberts even famously went barefoot on the tapis rouge at the Cannes Film Festival, on protest at some women being denied entry in flats the previous year. 

It’s safe to say that Cannes won’t be repeating that mistake any time soon. And nor will female stars feel obliged to slip on a pair of stilettos to meet some unspoken standard of grooming. So why TV shows feel obliged to keep up the pretence of stilettos being integral to female glamour is, frankly, beyond me. 

Eat, drink and be marry!

How to survive the endless round of parties to celebrate everything  from weddings to Christmas to the New Year Yes, it’s that time of the year again. The time when, between weddings, Christmas and the looming year-end, life turns into one big party. Which sounds all nice and lovely when the party season has just about kicked off, and there is a certain novelty value to getting all blinged up and heading out for an evening of drinks, dance and (a very late) dinner. But after about a fortnight or so (or a week, in my case) this whole festive whirl thing begins to pall. And the very thought of dressing up yet again, putting on a full face of make-up, and slipping on those high heels for another evening of negotiating mad traffic, loud music and indifferent food strikes terror in your heart. Well, at least, it does in mine. So, if you are anything like me, here’s a ready primer for getting through this season and surviving to party yet another year. •       First off, eat before you leave the house. And I don’t just mean a quick snack to take the edge off your hunger. I mean a proper meal that will keep you going till around midnight when your hosts will deign to serve dinner. That way you won’t be tempted to stretch a hand out for all those deep-fried monstrosities being served up as canapés to accompany the drinks. (I have a friend who actually downs a whole glass of Isabgol so that her stomach is so full that she can’t eat one unhealthy morsel when she’s out. But frankly, I wouldn’t go so far.) Then, when dinner is finally on the table, you can tuck in with a clean conscience. •       Pace yourself when it comes to drinks. It is tempting to keep knocking them back as you struggle to make yourself heard above the thumping beats provided by the DJ. But do try and resist. You don’t want just as thumping a hangover the next day. If you’re drinking wine, have a glass of water for every glass of wine you down. If you’re drinking spirits make sure to dilute them with lots of ice and mixers. And if you don’t want to drink at all but don’t know to repel all those “Arre yaar, have one whiskey, na!” there’s a simple way to do it. Get a glass of water, add lots of ice and lemon and claim that you’re drinking vodka. Nobody will care enough to take a sniff of your drink to confirm. •       Have a buddy system going with your friends, in which each of you pledges to rescue the one who has been pinned down by a party bore for more than ten minutes. It helps if you have worked out a few ‘Help Me!’ gestures in advance instead of just looking around wildly for rescue. If you don’t have anyone you can depend on (because they are all getting steadily sloshed in the corner) fall back on the tried-and-tested ‘startled look, smile and wave’ technique. This involves taking a quick look beyond your torturer’s shoulder, widening your eyes in surprise, smiling delightedly, waving wildly to someone in the distance, and excusing yourself with, “Sorry, but I must say hi…” Scamper off quickly before the bore follows you across the room. •       At wedding receptions you couldn’t do worse than adopt a technique that I have perfected over the years. Get there early so that enough people can register your presence. Grab a drink if you must. And then queue up to greet the newly-wedded couple as they stand on stage. Once you get there, hand over the envelope/present, pose for a picture (thereby leaving photographic proof of your attendance), bounce off the stage, do one whirl of the party greeting everyone you know and head straight on home. On a good day, you can be in and out of the reception in 20 minutes flat. •       If small talk isn’t your thing and the prospect of making inane conversation with social acquaintances strikes you as a mind-numbing waste of time, well then, treat parties as your own personal workout session. Hit the dance floor as soon as you can, and then stay there all night long, jiving away until it is time for dinner. (Wear your fitbit if you want to know just how many steps you have notched up and how many calories you have burned; you can then go to bed in a self-congratulatory haze.) •       And that brings me to the most important survival trick of all: comfortable shoes. That doesn’t mean you need to wear flats. It just means that you should steer clear of those vertiginous stilettoes (which have a way of sinking into the wet ground at every outdoor event, pegging you in place in the most embarrassing of ways). Instead, opt for platforms or wedges or even a block heel that wont make your feet ache by the end of the evening. If it makes you feel any better, remember your shoes are not visible beneath that sari or lengha anyway. And even if they were, in that crush nobody would even notice. So dance the night away; and survive another day in the mad scramble that is the annual party season.

Best foot forward

A flat-out refusal to heels is the way to go, ladies

What would you do if you turned up at work and were told to change out of your flat shoes and wear a pair that had a two-inch (at least) heel? Of course, if you are a man then the question doesn't apply because you would never be asked to do anything so silly in the first place. But if you are a woman and work, say, in a corporate office, a hotel, a restaurant or even an airline, would you accede to such a request because it was what was expected of female employees?

Would you trot off and find a pair with a heel and slip it on meekly? Or would you stand up for your right to wear any kind of shoe you bloody well like?

I only ask because a 27 year old called Nicola Thorp found herself in exactly this predicament when she reported for her temp job as a receptionist at the London office of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Her employment agency said that her flat shoes were unacceptable. She had to go off and buy a pair of shoes with heels at least two inches high and change into them. Thorp refused. So, the agency sent her home and refused to pay her for the day.

But while the rest of us would have vented on Twitter and called it a day, Thorp was made of sterner stuff. She launched a petition asking that it be made illegal to ask women to wear high heels at the workplace. In 48 hours the petition has chalked up 110,000 signatures, enough to get the subject debated in the House of Commons and a law passed so that no employer in the future can get away with such sexist demands of its female workforce.

Such strict grooming requirements are relatively rare in India. But a few years ago, when Delhi's new international airport opened, with its long walkways from check-in to boarding, I was appalled to see the female ground staff of one particular airline (which shall remain nameless) negotiating that distance on heels.

Why, I asked one young woman, was she wearing heels? Surely, flats made much more sense given that she probably chalked up 10 to 15 kilometers on a regular shift.

Yes, she agreed. But the uniform rules stated that female employees must wear heels, so she had no choice in the matter.

I was so appalled by this that I wrote a column the next week (Running in heels, Brunch, August 2010) about how unfair it was to discriminate against women employees in this manner. Men could go about their jobs in comfortable shoes, while the women had to teeter around on high heels. How was this fair?

A few months later, when I travelled by that airline again, I found that the ladies were in flats. The uniform rules had been changed. And while I wouldn't dream of claiming credit for that change, I would like to believe that my voice among the chorus of complaints mattered.

See, that's the problem. Too many of us are only too happy to follow the rule (unwritten or spelt out) that to look properly 'groomed' women must wear high heels. So much so that we have even conditioned ourselves to believe that we are not really ready to face the world until we have a pair of heels on to bolster both our height and our self-confidence.

Not that I am one to talk. I spent my entire 20s and my early 30s in heels even though there was no dress code that forced me to do so. I voluntarily embraced this world of pain, telling myself (and my aching feet) that this was what being a successful professional was all about: looking the part. It didn't help that I was short, so I needed the morale boost (quite literally) that high heels provided.

I, at least, had the excuse that I was short. But even my tall willowy friends embraced heels, simply because that was what you did. You wore heels to work and high heels to party because -- or so we were conditioned to believe -- that made us look more attractive.

It was only once I was comfortable in my own skin (and very uncomfortable in my heels) in my mid 30s that I finally had the confidence to vote with my feet and simply say no to heels. I stood tall enough in my own estimation. And I didn't care if I fell short of the beauty standards imposed on women across the world.

Today, I am happy to report that the rebellion against high heels is apace. Earlier this month Julia Roberts walked barefoot on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. This was noteworthy because last year at Cannes some women had been turned away from the red carpet because they were wearing flats. The dress code, they were told sternly, specified heels.

Well, try telling that to Julia, guys! She couldn't give a hoot as she threw off her shoes and sashayed across the red carpet in bare feet, giving the proverbial finger to the powers-that-be at Cannes in the process.

At this point, I am sure that there are many women out there who are preparing to mail or tweet me about they feel more powerful, even more empowered, with their heels on. Okay, ladies, just drop me a line five years down the line when your backs are whacked and your bunions have set your feet aflame and tell me how powerful and empowered you feel now. And then, we'll talk.

Hell on heels

There is nothing quite as comforting – and comfortable – as embracing the world of flats

I don’t know any little girl who doesn’t do it. Keep a look-out until Mummy is safely out of sight, and then quickly step into her high heels and totter around the house, balancing precariously on them. Needless to say, this doesn’t ever end well. Either she gets too ambitious, picks up speed, and lands right on her butt (or worse, face) or Mummy catches her in the act (yet again!) and gives her a right royal bollocking. Either way, it ends in tears.

But that early frisson of excitement, the thrill of trying something forbidden, of getting a taste of the adult world, never really leaves us, does it? It hides deep within our psyche and makes a pair of high heels seem like the most desirable thing ever. They become a totem of adulthood, a symbol of sophistication, an emblem of elegance, a sign of being all grown up.

So, it’s not surprising that as we grow up, there’s nothing we want more than our own pair of high heels. There’s something so ineffably adult about them that we just know that slipping them on will make us feel in command. But every time we go shopping with our moms and head inexorably for the high-heel shoes, we are herded off in the direction of sensible flats. And with each such episode, the longing within us just grows and grows.

But no matter how much we beg, plead, cry or cajole, those high-heel shoes remain tantalisingly out of grasp. We will get them when we grow up, we are told sternly, and not a moment sooner. Little girls simply do not get to wear high heels with shoes – and that is that. (Unless, of course you are Tom Cruise’s pampered princess, Suri, and even then it sets off an avalanche of angry comments in the media.)

Which is why slipping on your very first pair of high heel shoes is both a matter of joy and a rite of passage. I am pretty sure every woman remembers her first pair of high heels: where she bought them; how they looked; what she paired them with; how they made her feel.

I certainly do. My first pair was bought after an exhaustive trawl through all the shoes shops of Calcutta’s New Market. In black patent leather, accessorised with a little bow, they came with a very modest two-inch heel. They were bought for a family wedding but over the next couple of years I wore them to death, abandoning them only when they quite literally fell apart.

Since then, I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for high-heel shoes, stocking up on stilettos, wedges, kitten heels, platforms and whichever other heel-style was in fashion. Such was the intensity of my love affair with heels that I don’t think I possessed a pair of flats in my entire twenties, if you exclude the sneakers that were bought as a token nod to the need to exercise (one of these days, I kept promising myself).

So, I get the appeal of high heels all right. I agree with all those shoe designers who claim that heels don’t just make you stand taller, they also improve your posture, and give you a sexy wiggle for good measure. And yes, I see the point when women claim that they feel more confident, sexy, elegant and put together in heels.

But, I ask you ladies, at what cost? I can’t be the only one who suffers excruciating backaches after I’ve spent the day teetering on high heels. And I certainly can’t be alone in having my knees give up on me after decades of balancing four – or even five – inches above the ground.

Which is why – unlike those of my sex who choose style over comfort and are willing to painfully mince through life rather than give up their high-heel addiction – I have decided to vote with my feet and embrace the world of flats.

But though my love affair with heels is now over, I still have an entire closet of shoes to remind me of my past passion. Some of the more hellish ones have been given away to those with a higher pain threshold than mine but some still live on the back of my wardrobe, skulking darkly like ghosts of painful evenings past.

And every now and then, when I look at them, I wonder: what on earth was I thinking?

There’s the Christian Louboutin pair in blue velvet with silver sequins that I have worn maybe three times in my life (and only when I was sure I would be sitting down for the most part). There are the black stilettos from Jimmy Choo that I bought in a moment of madness and wore only once (slipping them off at the end of the evening to hobble across the 500 yards to my hotel room). The sky-high boots from Ferragamo which have me sobbing in pain every time I walk in them. (I could howl with rage when I think what I could have done with all that money spent on those lovely but utterly useless shoes!)

But I am happy to report that my days as a fashion victim are behind me. Now, I am no longer willing to buy any shoes that don’t work for the purpose for which they were designed: walking. I refuse to put on a pair that turns me into a helpless creature who can’t even negotiate a staircase, let alone a cobbled road. I am damned if I will wear a pair that doesn’t allow me to kick ass, or even haul ass at the first sight of trouble. I refuse to allow high heels to infantalise me, to turn me into a helpless, near-immobilised creature who can at best take baby steps.

It helps, of course, that the world of fashion has embraced the flat shoe as well. These days, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing comfortable, no-heel shoes. Ballet shoes are all the rage, and you can choose from every label of note, from the trendy Repetto to the more workmanlike Marks and Spencer. Loafers are perfect for a day on the run, and every label is churning them out. And if you want to go all ethnic, there is always the humble Kohlapuri or the leather jooti. (Though, I’m afraid fit-flops simply don’t do it for me.)

Now that flat shoes have finally found their moment in the fashion sun, what does it mean? Does it prove that women are finally growing up? That we are no longer naive enough or suggestible enough to fall victim to the fashion conspiracy that tries to sell us shoes that we can’t walk – let alone run – in? And more importantly, does it mean that we are finally refusing to seek validation from men on how we look? (Show me a man who says he prefers a woman in flats rather than high heels, and I will show you a liar.)

Going by the sheer number of women tottering about in high heels, that day is probably still some distance in the future. But I can’t help feeling that we are finally moving in the right direction – and some of us are even doing it in sensible flats.

Footnote

My favourite flats

* Knee-high black boots from Furla: Bought in a punishing New York blizzard, they have done me proud every winter, with their easy mix of elegance and comfort.

* Salmon pink loafers from Tods: Okay, they were a bit pricey but given that they are neutral enough to go with everything they have more than paid for themselves.  

* Leopard-print suede ballet pumps from L.K. Bennet: Anybody who thinks flats can never be sexy, should get a load of these. They rock!