Shyheels

Back to the subject of why we like to wear heels - and in my case, the fact that I am doing so; my boots are on order; some days ago. My wife approves of them - thought they were beautiful. Nice to hear. I bought some nice skinny black jeans to go with them (they've arrived). I would like to find some stiletto ankle boots as well to give me some variation.

Yup. Back in the day that would have been worth...oh, about five years I reckon...

It's a bit of both! My wife approves of the boots - says she loves the look of them and wishes she could have a pair too (alas, foot problems means strictly no heels) Somehow the fact that she was quite enthusiastic about the boots makes me feel even better about this brave new step! I can well imagine that 5+ miles awed in a 4" heel would have done wonders for your fitness! You must have had calves like a sherpa's!

Boots are on order...

Are these heels as worn by the great J. Edgar himself?

I look forward to the results! Ha Ha! Yes, PVCs as nighttime cycling wear! Actually.... I do ride in darkness all the time in winter, as my usual cycling times are very early in the morning and from October to March that usually means I require a headlight for at least part, if not all, of the ride. There would be worse I dead that holographic PVCs...

You are quite correct that in the 1950s etc bicycles were thin on the ground, or on the roads. The arrival of the automobile in the early years of the 20th century knocked the bicycle crack of the 1890s on its head - ironically many of the car manufacturers stared out as bicycle builders (John Kemp Starley, who invented the modern bicycle was among them - Rover bicycles became Rover automobiles!) By 1910 the bicycle craze was over. It is for this reason, its brevity, followed by the wars and the 20th century's mechanised age, that the transformative power of the bicycle during its magic decade of primacy is now all but forgotten

Check your dates Irish potato famine - 1840s Bicycle age (worldwide) - 1895+ Susan B Anthony was hardly a minuscule voice And the millions - literally millions - of bicycles that were sold during the 1890s radically changed the world - including ladies fashions.

As you say, a good 20% of men admit to trying on an article of women's clothing, and rather a higher percentage for those who tried on dshoes/boots. I suspect there is far higher still percentage of men who would secretly like to try on heels but haven't done so. And would probably hotly deny any leanings that direction if they were asked.

Here's an article: http://www.annielondonderry.com/womenWheels.html And this book by Frances Willard one of the leading sufragettes of the day: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wheel-within-learned-Bicycle-Reflections-ebook/dp/B0763NQNHC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1515677042&sr=8-5&keywords=Frances+Willard From The Atlantic Monthly https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-technology-craze-of-the-1890s-that-forever-changed-womens-rights/373535/ And an academic journal: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=ghj THere's loads more on the topic

They appear to have styles with patterns, but the hologram ones that arrived here are smooth and black - not really a whole lot different at a glance than the standard shiny PVC, except for a subtle rainbow iridescence in the light. Quite subtle, but also unmistakable. Not so sure I will keep them. I ordered the glitter-berry coloured pair of PVCs as well - jury's out on that one; looks a bit Elton John... I love the midnight blue version though. A definite keeper...

Here's Susan B Anthony, one of the leading suffragettes of the age, on the topic of the bicycle: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” She was not referring to a couple of ladies she happened to know who had taken up cycling. It was a massive movement and indeed it was demand for bicycles by women that drove the bicycle manufacturing industry to the heady heights it reached during the 1890s. As to hunger etc: Britain wasn't Ethiopia in famine at the turn of the century. Bicycle ownership was huge in Britain, as it was around the world, during the 1890s.

Yes, getting your stilettos stuck between gaps in the decking would not be a good look! My wife is quite fine with my flat/low OTK suede boots. She is supportive of my desire to try out stilettos although I don't think I would care to go out in them - assuming I master the art of walking in them well enough so that it would even e a possibility!

Again, I am sure they see - but whether they observe and thing is another matter. I take it then that your wife is comfortable with your wearing heels out to dinner? That's quite nice.

I have worn engineer boots in the past that had two-inch block heels and found that they were very good at easing back pain. I am not so sure that 4-5 inch stilettos will have the same therapeutic effect - I'd be surprised - but I shall find out soon enough. As regards your conference and the glitter, my guess is that nobody noticed your heels, even if they were clearly visible. As Sherlock Holmes used to tut-tut at Watson: you see, but you do not observe...

I wouldn't care for that colour either! My midnight blue and berry coloured PVCs are expected to arrive today. Very much looking forward to them. The hologram ones arrived last night. I need to look over them more closely, but outside of vague iridescent she, they are not really much different than the black pair I have now. Not really certain the difference is interesting enough to make me want to keep them. If I hadn't already had the black pair, sure, but with a pair already in my overcrowded closet - they might go back...

Oh, I am quite sure I shall enjoy my foray into heels! A high heeled boot is certainly aesthetically pleasing and I’ve no doubt wearing a pair of stiletto boots will add something - a greater sense of adventure and the forbidden. My first recollection of liking boots concerned go-go boots on a very pretty red haired girl in my seventh grade class, 1969-70... I don’t recall if they had heels or not. I think not...

Topshop also had a burgundy - “berry” - coloured limited edition of the PVC jeans which was sold out. The screen happened still to be open in my iPad this afternoon and when I went to close it I saw that somebody must have returned a pair - in exactly my size! I snapped it up. Don’t know whether I shall keep it or not, but I shall certainly have it to try on and can always return it if I don’t like it. Could be I will end up with four different pairs - black, hologram black, midnight blue and berry. A very boho look for my office...

Same here. I always liked the look and wished it was available for men. It took decades for me to grasp that it was up to me, not misplaced convention, whether or not I wore knee or over-the-knee boots! Heels were not really part of it. I liked high heeled boots. And I liked low ones too. I suppose if I thought hard about it, I might have had a preference for heeled ones, but not overwhelmingly so. I just liked the lines and look of tall elegant boots. Trying heels though is going to be fun and adding, literally, a new dimension.

Back on the subject of heels, I feel certain that a substantial number of men - a majority, probably, - would secretly like to see what it is like to wear heels - even if it was just for a day. Curiosity has to be in play here in the minds of many men. Then that leads to the more interesting conundrum - supposing they do try it, a day or even just an hour, in heels. What do they do if they find they like it? Own it? Admit it? Feel threatened? Get angry and sneer at men who display more inner courage and acknowledge they like to wear heels? Daring to try is one ting; daring to like is something harder still.

I think I shall go for the 120s. I'd welcome the challenge and I like the authority of a five-inch stiletto. It will be an adventure, thats for sure.

Your advice is good. I do think 4 inches would be pretty easy given my shoe size. Five inches, as you say, would be more challenging. I won't be dissuaded from continuing, that's for sure, but too high a level of difficulty at the outset can make mastery almost impossible no matter how persistent one might be if you can never quite get it right. I shall have to think carefully...

Bicycles did drive fashion and the move by women into wearing trousers - it is a rather widely accepted premise by social and fashion historians. And the bicycle was very much a British working class thing - although it swiftly became a worldwide phenomenon. Indeed, the bicycle craze in America saw literally millions being sold annually and the US Patent Offices busy with new cycliing patents they had to open a separate building just to handle patents in the cycling trade. But Britain was ground zero. The modern bicycle as we know it was a British invention - John Kemp Starley in 1885. Its popularity as a means of transport was ably supported by the invention of a Scottish veterinarian named Dunlop who came up with the pneumatic tyre, a couple of years later, making the ride comfortable on the rough country roads of the time. It was cheap, reliable, swift and easily maintained. From the very beginning bicycles and cycling had strong working class roots. Oddly enough - or perhaps typically - within a very few years cheap American made bicycles were dominating the market here. I have written and edited books on cycling history.. I know this stuff really well PS: I just looked up the cycling figures for Britain 1895 - 1.5 million cyclists. And that number continued to grow quickly through the rest of the decade.

Not romantic at all. The bald truth. The bicycle affected millions - literally millions - and was highly affordable by working class men and women who bought in droves - that was what was so ground-breaking about it. For the first time in history the lower and working class had mobility - something that hitherto had been the gift of the middle class and wealthy. HG Wells - who was a very observant social commentator aside from being a futurist - wrote several 'cycling novels' in the 1890s where the bicycle as a vehicle for social change and mobility had a starring role - The Wheels of Chance and Mr Polly being two of these works. Bicycles were very much the vehicle of the radical fringe in society, bed-sit socialists, marxists and union radicals, suffragettes. It was a worldwide phenomenon. In Australia the bicycle was the near-universal means of transport for itinerant shearers, men of sharply limited means, who roved the outback, looking for work from station to station. People have truly forgotten just how big deal the bicycle was. If you read a bit of the history of the bicycle it is a real eye-opener I agree with you - it was no fashion house that decided women should be free, it was women themselves. And my original point was that women showed far more boldness and moral courage than men ever have when it comes to fashion and wearing whatever it is they want to wear. They still do to this day. A woman would not think twice about buying a man's shirt, jeans, boots or shoes, where most men would turn bright pink and run the other way.

The bicycle actually changed the gene pool in Britain with research into church records showing a dramatic spike in inter-village weddings where the newlyweds came from different villages, often quite a few miles away. This upward spike closely correlates to the "bicycle craze" that gripped Britain (and the US and Europe) during the 1890s when working class men and women were revelling in their new-found mobility.