Pity the Models

It's rare I feel sad for models, paid handsomely as they are to wear stunning clothes and have their hair and make up done to make them ever more beautiful. How hard could it be? When I saw what looked like crab claws on the feet of the models walking in the Alexander McQueen fashion show, however, I decided it was time to feel some sympathy.


You may recall my mirth at models falling on the runway like struck gazelles - primarily because I didn't understand why they couldn't walk in heels. The heels in those shots were the normal kind of heels we mere mortals strut around in - drunk and all - without much complaint (thank God for bandaids) or stumbling (although I have just read an email from a friend who fell in her beautiful new boots in London and cracked open her chin - although I believe her when she says it was the wet weather and not the shoes or the wearer that were to blame, a I've seen her sprint in stilettos before, which truly is a talent to have). The latest offering from Alexander McQueen is ridiculous. Seriously. What are they meant to be? A ballerina's pointe shoes gone bananas? I think they are hideous, but the height of the shoe is now symptomatic of the debate currently raging regarding how high is too high for women's shoes. My motto has always been 'the higher the better', however after my fall in the David Jones shoe department (foot still scarred!), I did start to wonder if that motto was a tad redundant as shoes push their wearer ever closer to the clouds. And truly, you do not feel that you are walking on clouds when you're wearing these things.

While I do not subscribe to the theory that these shoes - often designed by men - are instruments of female oppression (we women buy and wear them, after all - and no one's holding a gun to our heads), I do wonder that what we do to our feet in our current crop of heels isn't a little akin to the ideal sought with the tiny bound feet of ancient China: all that pain in the name of beauty and desirability. What do you think?