Leaderboard

Exactly - why not? I've enjoyed the tangents and learned something about the idea of canal boat holidays. On the subject of unisex boots - the original topic of the thread and one of interest to me - I do not know much specifically about the offerings of YSL, but I am certainly pleased to see more interesting offerings along these lines. I think it would be nice to see barriers broken in both of the areas that limit men's choices in boots - heels and boot height, and preferably both. I quite like tall boots as a fashionable item (heels optional). But the wearing of tall boots by men - unless they are actually going horseback riding - seems to be off limits, regardless of heel height. There is no logic to it. I've dug into the history of boots and fashion, even contacted some prominent museum curators and history-of-fashion experts asking about this curious phenomenon and they can't explain it either and similarly see no logic. 'Boots are theatre', as one put it to me, and men foreswore the notion of theatrical dressing and fashion in the 18th century as part of the Great Male Renunciation, as it became know. While boots remained practical wear in horse and buggy days, and thus legitimately still worn, when the automobile came to the fore in the early 20th century they were no longer worn by men - except perhaps those on motorcycles. And when fashion designers made tall boots part of the sleek new look for women in the early 60s, what had been a neutral item became feminised and therefore no longer wearable by men except under the most traditional of circumstances - on horseback. A belated act of renunciation that has its roots in the mid-18th century and the so-called Age of Enlightenment. Isn't irony wonderful?