For journalistic purposes, I googled ‘high heels’. Great Almodovar film, but still having palpitations about the other websites. Growing up with the story of Cinderella, her beauty inextricably linked to having tiny feet, has left me with ugly sister syndrome. A number of big-footed Lewes women I’ve been talking to would like to kick-off the Birkenstocks and step out in flirty peep-toes. But we feel our ‘colossal pedal extremities’ (thank you Fats Waller) are only fit to be seen in flat, sensible footwear. Being a teenager at a time when you could not buy anything pretty in larger sizes than sevens (you probably could in a transvestite supplier, but there wasn’t one evident on Newbury High Street), we missed out on a female rite of passage; the do-it-yourself foot-binding stage of wearing cheap winkle-pickers and stilettos.
You can buy sexy shoes in bigger sizes these days, but we haven’t caught up. Even if we’re brave enough to buy them, we don’t wear them in public. One woman told me about the ‘dancing shoes’ she keeps in a box in the wardrobe. When the kids are at school, she puts them on and dances around the living room. Another revealed she has a pair of leopard-print high-heeled boots in her wardrobe. Never worn them outside the house, but has been known to sleep in them. Recently, whilst helping a post-baby friend shop for clothes that fitted and weren’t caked in baby sick, I got distracted by a pair of black, shiny shoes. With heels and in my size. The foot goddess was calling and I responded with a Visa card. I’ve got them on under the desk.