Something is afoot in men’s fashion. So steady yourselves, because high heels for the heftier sex are making a comeback.
Diminutive shoe aficionados including Karl Lagerfeld, Prince, Richard Hammond and Nicolas Sarkozy have long championed the discreet(ish) Cuban heel. Now, though, height-enhancing footwear has begun to permeate across a broader demographic. For the first time since Glam Rock peaked three decades ago, men of average height are discovering the delights of a few extra inches. Well-heeled shoes of all types, from craftily sized “status” shoes to 21st century platforms, are enjoying a new vogue.
The man-heel — or “meel” as some have termed it — is simultaneously a coming trend in several wildly different milieus. The most eye-catching examples are to be found in the semi-Goth, semi-glam society of high-fashion menswear obsessives. The natural territories for these platform-heeled pioneers include Hoxton, TopMan at Oxford Circus and various international fashion weeks. In Paris this spring, both Gareth Pugh’s and Rick Owen’s shows were attended by high-heeled male audience members. It was the same at Rodarte in New York and Pam Hogg in London. Notable man-platforms are being produced by Jean-Michel Cazabat and Owens himself. Both offer man-heels of about four inches and upwards.
This fashion-pack dalliance may well have been catalysed by Marc Jacobs, perhaps the industry’s most influential bellwether of style. Two years ago the designer let slip that he sometimes wore women’s heels to “suffer for fashion”.
Jacobs told The Times: “If I put heels in a collection I always try them on and walk around the studios in them during the fittings, which take up to 36 hours. It raises a laugh with the team for about five minutes because they’ve seen me do it so many times. But that’s not why I do it. I do it because I want to show that I’m not some misogynist designer designing these torturous shoes for women. The heels are there as a choice and if you want to wear them all the time, some of the time or never, it’s your choice.” He added: “I don’t wear them out on the street.”
Some male style mavens, however, do even go so far as to wear extremely feminine styles out and about. The street fashion photo blog of Peter Stigter shows one example of a young man outside the New York fashion week venue wearing strappy, open-toed stilettos — teamed with a fringed handbag. These camp, provocatively gender-skewing style statements are not the only way in which the man-heel is flourishing. A mariachi-meets-Keith Richards shoe shape — a pointed shoe or boot teamed with a silhouette-boosting heel — is proving popular among a more overtly masculine crowd. Dior Homme’s collection features a cool pointed suede ankle boot that gives about two inches of extra lift.
Selfridges reports a particular appetite for this style of boot. Sam Lobban, a contemporary buyer for the store, described the look as “flamboyant, but in an edgy, cool way. Heeled boots are the epitome of this and seem a natural turn for our customer — rock’n’roll twinned with elegance”.
The dandyish Rochester style by the English shoe designer Jeffery West gives nearly three inches of lift. So spectacularly pointed is it that one could, if inclined, quite easily hide a cheese triangle in front of one’s toes, go for a stroll, and preserve it unsquashed. Wearing the Rochesters — burnished a deep red and punched with a snake motif — earned me numerous appreciative comments at The Times yesterday.
The pointed rockstar boots, however, are obviously Cuban heeled. Men who hanker after a few extra inches but prefer not to brazen it out visit James Taylor & Sons near Baker Street in London. Here “status shoes” are made with visible heels of about 1¼in — barely more than regular shoes. Inside Taylor’s shoes, however, lurks a hidden 1½in lift. The shoemaker’s owner, Peter Schweiger, reports a steady trade in elevating wing tips, Oxfords, and chukka boots.
Not all of his customers, however, are averse to displaying their heels. “Sometimes people bring in shoes which we raise for them, back to the brothel creeper way of things with two inches of crepe under the soles.
