Faking Heights: Women of Perth Learn How to Walk in Heels

For crying out loud! If you’re dressed in your best, looking all “I stepped out of Vogue” then for the love of all things stylistic, practice walking in heels. I know you want to wear stilettos, so do I, we all do. It doesn’t matter about how they butcher your feet or your back. We gosta look good.

Clueless: But Maryam, how do I walk in high heels?
Maryam: Why, you just need to follow these simple tips and you’ll be well on your way!
Clueless: Why thank you Maryam.

1. Keep your posture straight, practice walking with a book on your head at home.
2. Suck your gut in.
3. Suck your bum in.
4. Keep your shoulders back, and relaxed.
5. Now, walk naturally don’t arch your back or lock your joints.
6. Put your heels on and feel your balance.
7. Understand that when you walk in heels your hips are meant to sway, you’re not marching to a Welcome Home band, you’re strutting. You are also allowed to take your time when covering distances. Traffic waits.
8. So, Strut (not to be confused with swinging your hips like a pendulum, or hopping, though it does make for some light amusement).

When not to wear heels:

1. When you’re in a hurry to get around on foot (you can substitute pointy heels for square ones, or shock horror, go for flats).
2. Immediately after your feet have suffered Hurricane New Shoe.
3. On wooden floors.
4. On surfaces with thin slits, such that your heels get stuck in there (makes for costly repairs and is quite embarrassing).
5. When you’re having an off-balance kind of day.
6. On track pants.
7. When the shoe is a size too big, you can never ever strut in these.
8. When you walk like a man.

Prior to adopting the stiletto heel, I was convinced that the invention and heavy promotion of heels was a carefully crafted and extremely well marketed ploy to ridicule women. After all, how the hell are you meant to walk in them? I resisted as long asI could, and when the stiletto heel, big and small, infiltrated the market ousting any other kind of heel, I bought my first pair. Whoa.

I was suddenly on higher ground. My feet arched. When I walked I felt off balance and uncoordinated. I somehow mastered the art by first trialling it on a carpeted surface. Eventually the sideshow hit the streets.

With the advent of Kitten heels, many wrongly assumed that their troubles would be eased. It defies basic principles of Physics to assume that more weight can be balanced on a stubbier but similarly shaped heel. The result, kitten heels tend to make you more unbalanced.

The dangers of being thus spatially challenged are:

1. It promotes waddling.
2. You tend to tip over from time to time.

Don’t believe it? Well here’s a true account of one such event. I was standing in the small meeting room looking out the window when I heard a voice behind me. I turned expecting to meet the Recruitment Agent I’d come to see. We were positioned around the small round table as I walked up to him to shake his hand. When I stretched my hand out, I also simultaneously tilted over to my right side. Not enough to warrant a pull back in his direction but enough to be visible. There’s not a lot you can do to salvage that situation. So much for first impressions.

So women of Perth, be advised. Wear these mean machines at the expense of your balanced. Don’t complain too strongly if people tend not to take you seriously, because really, how can they when you can’t even stand up on your own too feet, without tipping over to the side!