(Photo courtesy of Jezebel)
"I don't think practicality comes into it. It's more of an empowering assertion of your own femininity."
Yes. I've always found being rendered unable to walk very empowering. Also, as anyone who's ever had one too many Diamond Whites will attest, falling over is very feminine. Bonus femininity points if you manage to flash your new-season satin-bowed Damaris knickers* while doing so.
* DAVE: WARNING: PANTS
24 comments:
I fall over in flats so I don't think these will be for me. What I found really shocking though was the second pic down on that Jezebel link - the one with the walking skeleton...
It's OK, I have the internets plumbed directly into my new house now, courtesy of BT's second attempt, so no library viewing for me any more.
You may now be as rude as you like.
as empowering as foot binding, i fancy
i'm sure all those chinese women used to look at their mangled feet and say 'i feel so empowered by my femininity'
In an embarrassing coincidence last night, I put my foot in a crack in the asphalt while crossing the road last night and had a bad fall on the road, partly because my silly shoes — which, mind you, were clogs, albeit clogs with wedge heels — slip around on my feet and encourage my ankles to turn. The price one pays for fashion... or stupidity, since I knew they were loose when I bought 'em. I rub my knee in self-disgust.
I guess what I am saying is we do, sometimes, buy into the very BS that destroys us.
Where's GSE? She took a tumble and never even realised it was an empowerful act. I'm sure this news will make it all better.
At 27 stone = 375 lb = 170 kg (take your pick, they all amount to 'fat') and 6'1" = 185 cm, I'm terrified of falling, amplified by the fact that I have diabetic neuropathy. I wear sandals. With socks. Fashonistas of the world, eat my shorts!
Being terminally middle aged, I wear only sensible shoes like MBTs and Geox. The thought of anything with a heel gives me altitude sickness.
That underwear a bit troublesome? What if you get the string caught anywhere?
Jayne: Oh god yes, so much for the 'no size zero' campaign...
Dave: I refer you to the comments in this post, in which you request that I accompany any links to underwear sites with a conspicuous warning. Although I do maintain that pants are not rude. (Although those Damaris ones are. A bit.)
Lettuce Hater: Yes, isn't there also a whole school of thought that says that stilettos are tools of patriarchal oppression because they prevent women from running away from their patriarchal oppressors? Although they do double up as a handy weapon, I suppose.
Valerie: Were you wearing them with pop socks? This, apparently, is Prada's excuse for why so many models fell over on the catwalk.
Bowleserised: Poor GSE, still, she can surely take heart from the knowledge that she has asserted her femininity in an empowered way. (In fact I'm now thinking that 'asserting one's femininity' is a great euphemism for 'falling over in the street'. I myself have asserted my femininity on a number of occasions, some of them documented in this blog.)
John: Stones, feet and inches are good for me, even though I was less than a year old when this country supposedly 'went decimal'. Socks and sandals are of course the hallmark of the true geek, and true geeks are most welcome on this blog.
Sylvia: I have no idea what MBTs and Geox are, but I'm with you on the no-heels thing. Of course being terminally sad, I am still wearing Converse boots at the tragic age of 37. No doubt I'll still be wearing them when the Blue Kitten is old enough to be mortified with embarrassment at her mother's misguided attempts to remain 'cool'. And yes, I'm thinking that that underwear is probably designed for lounging around the house semi-naked in the company of some handsome chap or other, rather than for, say, bundling into jeans and going to Asda.
Ah, yes, I did say that then, didn't I?
Who am I to censor other's blogs, anyway?
I could censer it, if you like. The clouds of smoke would hide any rude bits.
I know. Good job she didn't fall over - she'd have snapped like a twig.
I don't know what "pop socks" are!
I must be old.
I was wearing them with hand-knit lavender-and-green striped stretch cotton socks -- so that would be up there on the dorkiness scale at least. If I'd been barefoot I don't think I'd have slipped.
I've been asserting my feminity all over the place lately, though not in stupid heels. Apparently it's the hormones, which is possibly confirmation of the uniquely feminine nature of the act. Empowered, though, I'm not so convinced of that.
I feel old. The first thing I thought when looking at that Damaris page was "ooh, those don't look comfy". Only after that did I think "very pretty though". That it should come to this! Comfort over beauty in knickers! Shocking.
Oh God, I'm still wearing Converse sneakers at the considerably more tragic age of (nearly) 45! My daughter borrows them.
The last time I was empowered by my femininity, I had to go home in a taxi and lie down with a bag of frozen peas on my ankle.
http://www.swissmasai.co.uk/
http://www.geox.com/site/conteiner.asp
These are the sites to look at. I have my eye on my daughters' converses - now I have the smallest feet in the house, I can inherit them when they grow out of them!
And as for underwear , it should be heard and not seen!
I sprained my toe while empowering my femininity (although I doubt attempting to play badminton in Crocs counts as empowering anything except stupidity) and it still hurts six months later.
As to the pants, no thank you. I need comfort these days.
I asserted my femininity while carrying a hoover home from the shop, and was aided in my empowerification by the broken paving stones in good old Socialist Karl Leibknecht Strasse. Socialism is empowerifying for women, don't you know.
Have you seen Posh spice in the boots with no heels in the Grauniad today. Makes her look like a satyr or is it a faun, something Narnian anyway.
I only wear heels at events that I am likely to drink to much and dance so I nearly always fall over.
Maybe the Damaris pants are actually quite comfy, in the same way that Posh Spice's weird, heel-less boots are apparently quite comfy. I'm prepared to put them to the test, if someone is prepared to stump up the several hundred quid needed to purchase a bra and a pair of knickers.
Also, can anyone tell me what the garment is called that appears to be neither bra nor knickers and is worn around the midriff, seemingly to no purpose whatsoever?
I'm very much enjoying these tales of female empowerment. I myself was empowered once while crossing a busy road in Chiswick, leading to the loss of a rolled-up copy of the Financial Times (perhaps a symbol for freeing myself from the shackles of the white male capitalist hegemony), and once while walking down the street in Acton, leading to the appearance of a fetching scar on my right knee.
I was very empowered earlier this year, resulting in a spectacular black eye and broken elbow. I can't tell you how assertive I felt.
PS. I wasn't even drunk - I think I might have bounced better with some vodka inside me.
At risk of sounding a little too feminine, I have some quite high platforms I wear regularly which are very comfy. I'm not sure if they're fashionable though so that may redeem me.
Is the waist lingerie a cinch? Or that Agent Provocateur thing from their maternity range which is supposed to shrink your womb? A waspie?
this is yet another example (and there are so many) of women being conned into collaborating in their own oppression. many thanks to the magazine that work so hard to create the anxieties they claim to assuage.
bastids!
I agree with all the arguments against heels, but I still collude in my own oppression by wearing them. I justify it on the grounds that I am so short no-one would notice me without them.
I have used them as a weapon though, and very handy they were too!
Checking back in...
I did fall in June this year, broke a toe with nasty complications, and I'm still wearing a walking cast (something like a knee-length boot, only with steel bits and Velcro straps). It should be off in a few weeks, but I've heard that tune before.
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