Despite it all, as Summer Brennan writes, women still love them. T here was a time in my life in New York City when I wore high heels almost every day. I myself did not have much power, but I worked at the United Nations, in a place where powerful people congregate. It is a place of suits and ties, skirts and silk blouses; of long speeches and aggressive air conditioning; of Your Excellency, and Madam Chairperson, and freshly shined wingtips and yes, high heels.
There was an image in my mind of a certain kind of woman — professional, feminine, poised — that I wanted to embody. These were power heels, and they were worn by women from all over the world. They were leopard print, or green and scaly. They were amaranthine and violaceous and subtly velvet. They were black and shiny as Japanese lacquer, with a shock of red on the sole.
Some were plain, but uncomfortable anyway. Perhaps I have embellished them somewhat in my imagination, my memory tempered by glamour. What is not in dispute is that all of these statement shoes invariably came with a steel-spined appendage like an exclamation point: stiletto, the heel named for a dagger.
For the women whose feet put up a fight, these shoes were changed out of and put away, smuggled in and out of the building in handbags, like weapons. When I worked in a formal office setting, high heels were never of any special interest to me beyond the fact that I liked them, and wore them, and liked wearing them. I never owned too many. Like a man might feel who has forgotten to put on his necktie in a boardroom full of men in neckties. They made me feel powerful in a womanly way; suited up, compliant, like I was buckled in to the workday.
But the fickle nature of fashion trends means that once a trend hits the mainstream, the taste pendulum swings in the opposite direction. The proliferation of trainers surely means that a heel renaissance is just around the corner.
True to form, there were signs that fashion designers are stepping away from the trainer trend in the recent round of fashion weeks. Sculptural heels that are decorative but not restrictively high have been gaining popularity Credit: Getty Images.
Even if we are moving away from the luxury trainer trend, Beth Goldstein, fashion footwear and accessories analyst at The NPD Group, says that the acceptance of trainers in a formal context is indicative of a long-term lifestyle shift for women. The growth trajectory will naturally slow, but sneakers will remain the driving force in the market. Kingham adds that even for customers who wear heels, the demand is for lower, more comfortable styles.
Savi believes that we will never entirely kick our heel habit, but the relationship is evolving. The stiletto might morph into something else, where height will still play a role. Labels such as Gucci, Calvin Klein, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga have been showing heeled boots and shoes in their collections, often adding glitter or bold prints on to styles.
In , luxury Italian designer Francesco Russo launched a genderless line of stilettos available in Italian size 35 to Another brand that is turning the traditional symbolism of heels on its head is Brooklyn-based Syro. The styles are chic and promote a fluid sense of style. Instead of banning high heels, they need to be released from enforced gender expectations and social norms. Then they are just, well, a pair of shoes. Ultimately wearing them should come down to individual choice.
However, we might have expected the latter group of women to have exhibited a decrease in attractiveness in heels. Our current leading interpretation for this apparently null effect of heels for women whose lumbar curvature was pushed further from optimum is that it reflects a trade-off between the negative effects of the shift in lumbar curvature and the positive effects on other influences on attractiveness, such as muscle tone.
This, of course, can only be a speculation for now and represents an important future direction. We hope that future research can further disentangle these and other potential high heel-based influences on attractiveness. This indicates that muscle tone cannot fully account for these findings, and lumbar curvature must be at least part of the story.
We hope that future research continues to investigate lumbar curvature as an important attractiveness cue—one that may provide information relevant to solving multiple distinct adaptive problems. Recent research Lewis, ; Lewis et al. The possibility that lumbar curvature is a cue to both may help account for the large shift in lumbar curvature observed in the uncontrolled celebrity images Study 1 relative to the lab-based Study 2 images.
In the lab-based study in which female participants were assigned to wear heeled footwear, it is unlikely that they were signaling interest in mating. On the other hand, the images used in Study 1 were of celebrities who had elected to dress up in high heels. The women not only would have had their lumbar curvature shifted by the shoes, but their choice to wear high heels presumably reflected their motivation to enhance their physical appearance, which could include further behavioral arching of the back.
We hope to see future work disentangle the pregnancy hypothesis i. By working from the starting point of a specific adaptive problem and a reliable morphological cue to the ability to solve that problem, researchers can generate tight, theoretically anchored hypotheses about specific features that should be important attractiveness cues. We hope that evolutionary research on human standards of attractiveness will proceed in this specific, systematic manner.
It is known that men prioritize physical attractiveness worldwide in mate selection Buss, , but progress hinges on identifying critical cues that make up attractiveness. By anchoring attractiveness research in cues to the ability to solve specific adaptive problems, researchers can generate more precise hypotheses and predictions see Lewis et al.
We hope that the current studies serve as a model example of this specific and systematic approach, and make a modest contribution to our understanding of human standards of attractiveness. DL generated the primary research hypotheses, designed the studies, and analyzed and interpreted the data. ER assisted with study design, generated study stimuli, and conducted the studies. LA-S and DB assisted with interpretation of results and manuscript preparation. ZS assisted with literature review and manuscript preparation.
VT and WI assisted with conducting the study. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Abbey, A. Misperceptions of friendly behavior as sexual interest: a survey of naturally occurring incidents. Women Q. The effects of clothing and dyad sex composition on perceptions of sexual intent: do women and men evaluate these cues differently. Relevance of non-human animal studies to the understanding of human sexuality.
Buss, D. Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Brain Sci. Fedorak, C. Reliability of the visual assessment of cervical and lumbar lordosis: how good are we? Spine 28, — Freeman, C. Google Scholar. George, S. The relationship between lumbar lordosis and radiologic variables and lumbar lordosis and clinical variables in elderly, African-American women.
Spinal Disord. Goetz, C. Sexual exploitability: observable cues and their link to sexual attraction. Color and women attractiveness: when red clothed women are perceived to have more intense sexual intent. Women in heels are often women of power. Do a quick search for " business woman ," and if the picture is a full-length shot, you can bet that woman is wearing heels. Business organizations like Business in Heels and Leaders in Heels use women dressed in spikey heels on their home pages, or a red pump for their logo.
As a woman who stands at 6'1" in her bare feet, heels have never been a necessity for me. When I put on 4-inch heels, I become a colossus. People literally have to crane their necks up to talk to me. But for my 5'1" friend, heels are an instant confident boost. Even though her office doesn't require them, she wears them almost daily. It was always important to 'show up,' and I would say I often commanded more respect the more well put together I was," she says.
Psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Central Lancashire might agree. They conducted an experiment in which they digitally lengthened and shortened pictures of women, asking for instant judgments from the viewing participants. The results revealed some harsh truths. The heightened women were judged as more intelligent, assertive, independent, and ambitious — not to mention richer and more successful — than their shorter versions.
Dawnn Karen , M. Mc, of the Fashion Psychology Institute argues that, just like shorter men, women too can get a Napoleon complex. Heels are a way they can gain back some of the power they feel they lack due to their height. She always wants to be taller than her opponent. All that said, flats have definitely become more widely accepted than they once were.
As of August , fashion retailer JD Williams reported that flat shoes outsold heels by percent. According to a study from consumer analyst Mintel, for the first time, women are buying more flats than heels. It found that 37 percent of women purchased trainers, compared to 33 percent who bought heels compared to the previous year where both were at 35 percent.
And with people like Nicole Thorp leading the charge, more and more women may feel comfortable switching over. It seems to me, though, that this long-loved, long-hated, long-leg enhancing, back-pain-inducing, head-turning, neck-cranking footwear isn't a decision for women. It's a decision for you. Heels make our walk more attractive Shutterstock.
They make us appear more feminine Shutterstock. Heels are office dress code Shutterstock. They're culturally-ingrained Shutterstock.
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