These are Heels for Dudes.

These heels, shown at left, were made for a dude. Speaking selfishly and subjectively, I am not entirely sure how I would personally feel about the idea of high heels on a dude who was the potential object of my own affection. But I suppose it depends on the dude. If it were, say, Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh, i would not flinch or reach for the emergency pair of Converse, stashed by the door for just such a crisis -- no, I would swoon ever more swoonfully. Anyway, Susannah Breslin points us to these kickers by Stuart Weitzman, crafted for a certain glam-rock star, and here is a blog post about them.

• [Frau Blucher]

  Apparently high heels came out of the temples. In many cultures they’re also related to women’s menstrual rites. In both cases, there seems to be a taboo against the foot and especially the heel touching the earth.

  No mention of Bootsy Collins?

• [Anonymous]

  @ 74, if you would look back in vogue and men’s fashion you would see that the combination of heels and skirts for men was proposed amongst others in 2002. Furthermore in the floiwer power era – late 60′s – it was common for men to wear heels, laat 1800 it was still common that men would wear skirt like garments in rural arears whilst psychiatrist Binet considered that at the same time a fetish…

• [pjcamp]

  Of course, it is far more likely to be Marilyn Manson and his boobsuit.

• [Anonymous]

  This kind of remind me of 18th century Sweden, where women considered the lower part of the leg (is there an English word) the most sexy part of the male body. I don’t know if this was a local thing or if it was shared with the rest of the western society (with the fashion of male stockings at that period, I would guess it was).

  If you read old Swedish documents from that time, like diaries and letters, you will find an surprisingly large amount of descriptions and discussions from women about sexy legs on some male person, or the lack there of. I have also read some descriptions from males on how they dress and exercise to get sexy legs and how to expose them to the fullest.

• [christooss]

  Eddie Izzard will have something to wear :)

• [h4x0r]

  There’s nothing homophobic about thinking these things are completely homosexual.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    There’s nothing homophobic about thinking these things are completely homosexual.

    Odd, because my perusal of heterosexual erotica has led me to believe that it’s straight guys who need to see high heels in order to get aroused.

• [schmod]

  Hold on…. Noel Fielding is straight!?

• [Xeni Jardin]

  Keep it non-homophobic, people.

• [Noelegy]

  “Kinky Boots” being the first thing I thought of, for sure…

• [Anonymous]

  Just for @10, the egyptian priest were wearing heels already

• [stupidjerk]

  All heels are for dudes. Provided they don’t have giant, fat feet, of course.

• [eatshawn]

  i’ve heard tales of women wearing pants these days.

• [Anonymous]

  @18 & 20: The more accurate word now is ‘heterosexism,’ actually; 18 was pretty close.

• [All Jelly No Toast]

  By ‘dudes’ you mean ‘a dude.’

  And this makes me slightly self conscious about the cowboy boots I’m wearing right now.

• [katamari88]

  Men and heels just shouldn’t mix. And I’m gay.

• [Brainspore]

  Looking down at my furry, splay-toed size 12s I’m skeptical that I could get such a pointy-toed contraption on even if I wanted to. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

• [Anonymous]

  For the discerning Camden Leisure Pirate.

  ~Hurst

• [ROSSINDETROIT]

  I think we’re missing the point here: These are not cute boots. Fine if you want to look like the secretary in a real estate office ca. 1985, but why?

  We need an aesthetic ruling on this.
  ANTINOUS!!!

• [Master Mahan]

  They’re not for this dude – not because I have a problem with them, but because I’m already 6’3”. This trend of marketing traditionally female clothing items to men interests me. Thongs I understand – I can see one’s partner really enjoying that exposed man ass. Male pantyhose, not so much. I suspect this is all a heavyhanded attempt to make men as profitable consumers as women are.

  And people, let’s not forget: cross-dressing doesn’t necessarily equal homosexuality.

• [sorted]

  I know of a male model (he’s been stalking my wife…absolutely bizarre dude) who wears crap like this. Now there’s one thing about being in touch with your fem or anima or what have you, but this gear crosses the line from anything masculine straight to “I want to be a girl(aka I want to compete with girls)”, IMHO.

  keep it coming Xeni, I always love yer posts!

  sorted (I’m precious!)

• [Xopher]

  All heels are for dudes…they just usually make women wear them.

  Btw, heeled shoes (and I mean pumps and spike heels) made for men’s feet have been around for decades. “Transvestite Boutique” was an ad I saw many times on the back of the Village Voice. Drag queens don’t magically get women’s feet.

• [elpajaronegro]

  Noel Fielding, yummy. He wouldn’t wear those, though. They’re brown.

• [Ito Kagehisa]

  Cowboys like high heels because it keeps your feet square in the stirrups when you’re hauling back hard on a lariat.

• [jackie31337]

  Somewhere out there is a man with very dainty feet, because I got his by mistake (I’m female). The most comfortable and best-fitting pair of heels I’ve ever owned came from an online store that specializes in making high heels on a men’s last (the form used to shape the shoe).

  Incidentally, in the past, for example in the Baroque era, it was very fashionable for a man to wear high heels. It’s possible that men wore heels before women did (my source for this is a coffee table book about shoes, so I can’t exactly cite with a link).

• [Xeni Jardin]

  @#8 elpajaronegro, hahahah you’re right! You win the Mighty Boosh trivia contest, respect!

• [midknyte]

  @15 – Did anyone watch “Kinky Boots”?

  ah, you beat me to it. Fun movie.

• [Enormo]

  Heels on a man are very gay.

  Am I gay? No. But I’m willing to learn.

• [Anonymous]

  Yuck! If you’re going to damage your feet, knees and spine and risk breaking your neck to wear heels at least make them attractive or wild or something. These are UGLY.

• [13strong]

  Xeni, you’re such a cliche? Noel Fielding? Please, he’s like a hall of mirrors midget cowboy.

  All those with their sex-radars properly tuned know that Julian Barratt is the real sex god on that show. He just uses Noel to distract the teenage girls, so he can focus on the REAL women.

  Ahem. Anyway.

  Men in heels? Well, I suppose men looking totteringly absurd while being subjected to painful, impractical social pressures is equality of a sort…

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    @13strong: I want them BOTH.

• [colonel gentleman]

  Is this from Marc Bolan’s personal collection?

• [Gloria]

  @7: Or many women’s frames. Most stilletos aren’t designed to withstand the heft of 6′, 200lb bodies, I imagine.

  Did anyone watch “Kinky Boots”?

  @10: I was going to say the same. Louis the XIV was famously a flamboyant dresser, and he wore a very memorable pair of white shoes with red heels in his iconic portrait (for anyone who doesn’t know it, google “Louis XIV”).

  I stay away from stilettos and pumps myself (and stick to sturdy one-inchers at the highest), but the key to pointy shoes is to wear at least a size larger than you normally do. Quite comfy.

• [Catmother]

  I just want to thank all the commenters for resisting the temptation (made worse by the excessive amount of “dude”‘s in this post) from mentioning the lyrics to a certain Aerosmith song that I too will refrain from referencing.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Am I gay? No. But I’m willing to learn.

  I offer classes. $150 per hour in, $200 per hour for out calls.

  As to the boots, all the answers do indeed lie in Kinky Boots. Chiwetel Ejiofor almost put a stiletto through the shoemaker’s eye for using cranberry leather. Brown would have been a death sentence. Everyone should watch that movie. It has both Nick Frost and load-bearing theory to keep the more masculine-minded viewer entertained.

• [Anonymous]

  So what’s the difference between these and a pair of women’s heels, besides the name?

• [13strong]

  @16 XENI JARDIN:

  At the same time? Or forming an orderly, quintessentially British queue?

• [Evil Jim]

  I think pointy toed shoes are a bad idea for everyone.

  Except elves.

• [Teller]

  I love high heels on anyone over 18.

  btw, I don’t even know what homophobia means anymore. I don’t think it means what it says: fear of. People mean Hate of – so what’s that word: homosexist?

• [obdan]

  Tom Cruise?

• [13strong]

  @18 TELLER:

  “Homophobia” hasn’t meant “fear of…” in a long time. It’s just the word that’s meant for people who are prejudiced against homosexuality, and homosexuals because of their homosexuality.

  Let’s not go changing the word, since everyone (else) seems to know what it means.

• [alisong76]

  Gloria @ 15, they solved that particular engineering problem in the movie Kinky Boots ;-)

• [Xeni Jardin]

  @13strong: I’ll take ‘em however I can git ‘em.

• [ROSSINDETROIT]

  Feet are feet. Men are about 2 increments wider than women, typically. A man with size 9B feet usually fits women’s normal 10.5 shoes perfectly. Many casual and athletic shoes are made for women and men in identical construction but on a narrower last for women. I used to sell shoes at a high end department store. More than one man with a narrow ‘A’ or ‘B’ foot would rather wear a sloppy men’s ‘D’ width shoe than buy the identical item with a perfect fit from the Women’s shoe salon.
  That particular boot shown above looks like the calf is wider as well, as would be expected for a man’s typically heavier musculature.
  It’s kind of ’1980′s secretary looking,’ though.

• [franko]

  psshh. 80s hair metal bands were all over this trend.

• [suckstobeyou]

  they could sell a ton of these boots in the porno industry. his white socks never quite match her stilettos. plus, goldentoes are so 2008.

  Gary
  Co-founder/Author
  

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    suckstobeyou,

    Your blog link can go on your profile page. Thanks.

• [13strong]

  @Xeni Jardin:

  Yeah, well, you’ll have to line up behind about 1,000,000 British teenagers.

• [monkey]

  men have a different weight distribution than men do and tend to weigh a wee bit more than the average high heel wearing woman, so, i’d imagine heels designed with these variables in mind would be beneficial for high heel wearing males. i wonder if eddie izzard buys his heels off the shelf or if they are custom made with a reinforced shank?

• [Brainspore]

  I think pointy toed shoes are a bad idea for everyone.

  Except elves.

  Don’t be hatin’ on genies, yo.

• [Droogy]

  A bit off-topic but…Those Mighty Boosh fellows must be really popular. I just found a Mighty Boosh calendar on Amazon selling for $552.56.

• [Catmother]

  Grammar note:

  “from mentioning” should read “to mention”

• [Jeff]

  If a guy can walk in heels like this, more power to him. Eddie Issard looks fine in his stylish footwear.

• [pinehead]

  On a woman, thin heels like that are dainty (or outright sexy). n dd, t jst lks pncy nd frty. Male bodies are more squarish and heavily-built. So to put that kind of body on a set of little skinny, spiky heels just looks silly.

  Reminds me a little of this comedian I heard – I wish I could remember her name. But she’s a big, square-built lesbian who had to doll-up as a bride’s maid for a friend’s wedding. She described herself as looking “like a Russian power-lifter in drag.” XD

  Ya gotta wear clothing that works with your body, not against it.

• [jackie31337]

  Gloria @15 Most stilletos aren’t designed to withstand the heft of 6′, 200lb bodies, I imagine.

  Most probably aren’t, but good ones have a steel support inside the spike heel.

• [ROSSINDETROIT]

  Clothes send a message. These boots are saying “I own Tootsie on VHS and the Deluxe Director’s Cut Collector’s Edition Double CD” also “I think Cosmopolitan and Metropolitan Home are the finest periodicals ever published” and “I practice The Electric Slide alone in my living room in case I’m asked to be in another wedding”

• [mrfantasy]

  These would be great for a dude like me. They’d make me like 5 foot 6!

• [Jeff]

  Aunty Antinous, you’re cheap. But funny.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    @Jeff: he’s actually not all that cheap. I sign the checks.

• [cokemule]

  Agree with Elpajaronegro that Noel wouldn’t wear them. But disagree that they are brown – more like somewhere between an aggressive nutmeg and an angry beige.

• [Anonymous]

  As a 40-ish straight married man, I shouldn’t want those — but lord, do I ever want them!

  Why do so many folk immediately hit the ‘gay’ button when a man tries to branch out beyond the Joe-Six-Pack or the GQ look?

• [Takuan]

  so who is going to photoshop up some improvements? (I have a weakness for rhinestones)

• [Anonymous]

  just wait within another 1-2 hundred years men will be wearing heels again along with the skirt and it will be taboo for women to wear such things and within 2 hundred years of that it will switch again assuming were not all wearing some kind of all in one outfit with a uniform feel to it

• [Anonymous]

  @55

  “…disagree that they are brown – more like somewhere between an aggressive nutmeg and an angry beige.”

  you just totally MADE my day.

  rock on Howard Moon;

  “…you can mess me up fun time…”

• [BlindKarma]

  I can hardly walk on ice in my Timberlands. I don’t even like men’s dress shoes- I can’t run in them, they’re too loud and hurt my feet. Why even women have been brain washed into thinking heels are sexy is beyond me.

• [imipak]

  I can’t quite see Jeff Bridges in those.

  From the TMI corner: I’m a bisexual man, and once had a girlfriend who wore a thrift shop pinstripe suit, heavy brogues and a bowler hat (and carried it off /brilliantly/), and – *sigh*… let’s leave that anecdote right *there*. (I also had a relationship with a bloke who did TotP in a skirt, but that’s another story.) And to top the wyrd gender-&-sex twists off, I’ve been celibate since 2002. (Coincidence??/?/?!)

• [PaulR]

  Xeni: If you ask me, I find that women who wear flats tend to have nicer calves.

• [Anonymous]

  Women have appropriated men’s wear, but it’s definitely taboo to go the other way. Girls definitely have more choices and fun when it comes to footwear… I would love to have the option! Men’s shoes tend to be so BOORING!!

• [Tenn]

  All heels are for dudes, and heels were originally designed for men. Our idea of masculine and feminine has changed over the ages.

  I have a friend who wears some lovely heels. He looks damned good in them.

• [FourFiveFire]

  I submit that Matt Berry could rock those, too. But he needs ‘em in red. Accompanying electric sex pants.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfq3B9JvIcQ

• [Takuan]

  could we sex these up with some heel?
  http://www.abovetheaether.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/large.jpg

• [Jeff]

  Anonymous, our culture (broad term I know) often equates gay men with female fashion for several reasons, some of which are confused with transvestitism (a mostly heterosexual phenomena). It also has to do with seeing women as weaker than men, dainty, flowery, submissive, sensitive…all things that many young boys are told are bad. Historically, men probably didn’t wear heels like this because they are probably torturously uncomfortable. But where men may have lacked for heels, then did not lack for velvet frocks, silk hosiery, lace and bling. The male fashions in many past English, French, Chinese, Japanese…cultures were extremely “feminine” by today’s western blue jeans and T-shirt casual culture standards.

• [Brettspiel]

  Chiwetal Ejiofor, for sure.

  Kinky Boots!

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434124/

• [bassemb]

  Oh, yes. I can totally see a guy’s hairy toes squeezed together in there. Mmm, sexy!

• [elguapostrikes]

  @ #26

  $552.56? This is an outrage!