Lies about heel height - Page 4

Bubba136 · 25th July 2004, 02:02

Daz, from what little I know about Becky, if I were young, single and lived anywhere near her, kinda like you do, I would sure try my best to meet her in person. She used to chat with a bunch of us in Jenny's chat room. And, over the past couple of years, we've gotten to know her pretty well. However, I have a daughter about the same age and they have a lot in common (perhaps it's my paternal instinct?) I can relate to her situation through my experience with my own daughter. She has impressed me with her intelligence, self reliance and determination to meet life head on. The identical qualities I find in my own daughter. And sure, I would like to see her post more often on this forum. she has a great deal to contribute.

Highluc · 25th July 2004, 09:04

Hey guys come on !!!
Is it really so difficult to follow the moderaters request to go back to topic?
Why start gossiping about a girls character (good or bad) on a chapter not created for guys doing that, on a completely different topic , just 3 hours after Firefoxes specific request?
Some people just never get it or have forgotten such private things can be discussed by private mail, another forum feature.
Have a nice weekend, Laurence

Lucy · 25th July 2004, 11:18

Extremely well said Laurence!

After all the earlier kerfuffle, I tried posting on Saturday to respect Vanity by trying to get the thread back on her original topic of girls talking about their heel heights.

But what happened? My efforts were swept aside by another avalanche of bickering, egotistical, thick-skinned, heel-wearing guys who appear to have no respect for the moderators, or Vanity, or the rest of us few girls on the board. I despair! As Laurence and the moderator and Heelfan and others are trying to say, PLEASE GIVE US SOME SPACE ON OUR OWN FORUM GUYS!

We can't say it any louder than that!

Love, Lucy

Trolldeg · 25th July 2004, 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanity

Something I have noticed is that many lie, or exaggerate the heel height.
Some of my friend say that they don't use their 4" or 5" heels very often,
and when you take a look at them they are 3" or perhaps lower.
I think it's "cute", in some weird way, to pretend that they are higher then they are.
When I shoe-shop together with some friend I encurage her to buy high heels, but they always end up in the closet. Comfort is the key-word.
Sometimes I wonder if it's me that's weird.
Anyone with the same experience?
:D

for some people, the exact heel height maybe isn't that important?

Highluc · 25th July 2004, 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trolldeg

for some people, the exact heel height maybe isn't that important?

For me the height only comes second to comfort and elegance. I have so many shoes I rarely go shopping for something particular. Usually my eyes fall on a for me overall pleasing model and if the fit is good and the wallet ok I end up buying these. Now as soon as I come home first thing I do is take a ruler and measure the heel and platform if applicable. This is just out of curiosity and even with all my experience I already had some surprises of heels differing up to 1,5cm from my (gu)estimate, both plus or minus. Comfort rarely had any relation to true heel height and I never felt the need to go higher just for the sake of reaching so many inches. By the way, estimating heel heights is not as easy as you thought if you don't know the shoe size you are looking at.
Happy heeling, Laurence

Anne_Louise · 26th July 2004, 09:49

Bubba, I'm so sorry to have misused your name. The dispute was, of course, between DAZ and Becky. I think a little premature senility must be setting in if I am mixing up names like that!

I apologise too for the delay in making this correction. I'm usually very busy at weekends so I rarely have time for forums.

Lucy, I agree with every word, and I've had many similar experiences to yours.

Anne Louise

azraelle · 28th July 2004, 03:36

May I offer an alternate viewpoint? Feet is feet, male or female, they're both the same, gender-wise. But not all feet are the same. Some humans have a genetic abnormality (I don't remember the name or technical details, only that it was discussed on this forum some time ago) where heel wearing above, say 1-1/2 inches caused extreme discomfort, which can be alleviated SOMEWHAT by lots of practice, but even "moderate" heels will never really be comfortable. I believe that my mother had this problem. There are other genetic predispositions that make higher heels more comfortable than low heels (or at least as). Flat feet with heel spurs fall into this category, one which I have.

I have long known that heel wearing can alleviate pain from knee tendon injuries associated with driving for several hours at a time--again because I have that problem. I recently found that they help a backache, first from posts by genebujold. One of my flatmates was squatting in what to me would be an intensely uncomfortable position right after work. To him it was more comfortable that standing flat-footed because it relieved the pressure on his back to be squatting on his toes. I lent him a pair of relatively low-heeled very ugly block heeled boots (maybe 1-3/4" at the back) to see if it would help--immense relief on both our parts--I got rid of the damn things! More recently, heels helped ME with a backache.

My convoluted point is that heels in the range of ~ 1" to 2-1/2" or so are immensely uncomfortable, to me, but heels in the range of 2-3/4" to 4" are more comfortable than most flat shoes, anti-pronation running shoes with double Spenco arched insoles inserted being the sole exception. Maybe some women out there who find what Daz calls low or moderate heels to be excruciating have feet with problems similar to mine, and contrary to what logic would seem to suggest, might find relatively higher heels, especially with a curved arch, to be much more manageable. Most probably never will try them though, because to many women (my ex-wife and oldest daughter come to mind), heels are at best unimportant to their self-image. Why bother?? They don't HAVE to in this day and age, unless they aspire to be exotic dancers or cocktail waitresses, or highly paid models or COMDEX product demonstrators.

I also think that most of the "lies" are from predominantly male shoe salesmen, trying to sell sexy shoes to women in shoe stores. They seem to believe that exaggeration of heel height will lead to higher sales. Who knows, maybe they do. But I think that most women who put forth an exaggerated aproximate heel height are just repeating what the salesman (or saleswoman) said--I don't think there are that many that carry a measuring tape with them in their purse to verify the claims. Like I surmise a lot of guys here do.

Dr. Shoe · 28th July 2004, 18:11

I find that many of the lies about heel height are perpetrated by ebay traders. I was looking at a pair of '5" heels' that were obviously no more than about 3"!

Firefox · 29th July 2004, 00:07

I'm sure men add the odd inch or two using "poetic licence" when it comes to description of various items. There's no reason women shouldn't do the same

Arno · 31st July 2004, 00:22

This was supposed to be about lieing about heel height but drifted off course. That is no different than lieing about your age but various other issues came in that I want to comment on.
First some sorely needed facts need to be brought into the dispute between Becky and Daz. It is important to know here that high heels that are comfortable to wear must fit well from the beginning. Susan, known from the other forum, was very firm about that and she wore nothing but the highest heels, 24/7. And the critical factor for this is width. Now it so happens that not everyone’s foot has the same width but high heels are made in only one width, called “Medium.” It was previously called “B” because there were then also other widths like A, C, and D that have passed into history. This leaves a fairly large group of women who have to wear shoes that are too tight because “Medium” is too narrow for them. It causes foot troubles and makes the podiatrists rich. They should be agitating for manufacturers to supply the missing widths but they don’t. Instead, they have a wacky solution to the problem: they surgically narrow the feet of women who desperately crave to wear the latest designer shoes. So Daz, you have to give up your superior attitude and start believing women who cannot wear three inch heels, not because of the height but because they can just never get shoes that fit them properly. You did not know the facts but you said a few rash things that you need to apologize for.
My second point is about comparing heel heights that seems to bother some. It is obvious that a five inch heel on a size nine shoe forms much less of an incline for the foot than the same heel on a size five shoe does. I once posted a table of equivalent heel heights that correspond to four, five and six inch heels in US size nine but it seems to have scrolled off this board. Here I want to suggest a personal factor that you can use to determine what your heel height corresponds to when scaled up to a US size nine shoe. First, put your bare foot on a sheet of paper. Draw a line behind your heel and another line parallel to it in front of your toes. Measure the distance between these two lines in inches and divide it by ten. This is your personal factor. Now measure the heel height of your shoe and divide it by your personal factor. This tells you what your heel height would be if scaled up to size nine. Or you can go backwards too. If you want to know what a five inch heel on a size nine shoe corresponds to in your shoe size, multiply five (the heel height for size nine) by your personal factor and you get its equivalent in your own shoe size. It is this equivalent height that should be referred to when comparing actual physical heel heights. Some manufacturers will scale the heels according to shoe size but others don’t and to find out which is the case you will need to measure it yourself.
And one more thing. It is not true that wearing heels causes knee damage as one of you claims. This misinformation keeps popping up despite studies showing that it is false.