High heels

Hey all,
I feel so slack, because I haven't posted in weeks and weeks- who am I kidding, I haven't posted in months. I've been overtaken by this slacking, awful apathy and have been sinking in a quagmire of ennui; such like 'why should I xyz', despite te fact that prior xyz was my favorite thing to do ever. Anyway, tres sad, I know. When I was at yoga yesterday, before the class, we were discussing that end of year apathy everyone gets - BUT WHAT IF ITS PERMANENT AND I STAY LIKE A LUMP FOREVER??!!

Personal rant over. It sucks actually, because I've gotten new bras, increased my size, thrown out shit loads of bras, etc, all of which warranted (and still warrants) blog posts. But lo, you exclaim. This IS a post! Well, duh, of course. And I feel it is necessary, more necessary even than bras and lingerie. Girls shoes. Or rather, they are not necessary in themselves, but my horror and anger towards them rages with a fiery passion.

Why the f do guys get to consistently wear shoes in which they can walk? The general criteria of this shoe is lace up or at least full coverage of the foot, so that it never slips, and in wet days, you actually have a chance of foot comfort. If an unexpected walk should be foisted upon you - no problems, be it business shoes or weekend shoes your feet can deal with this shit. Basically, male shoe comfort transcends season and situation. Unless you wear thongs/ flip flops.

But girl shoes. Heels alter your gait, making it seem just a tiny bit more awkward, stilted, regardless of if you are a seasoned heel wearer. You just can't sprint away from a murderer or walk 40 minutes because you missed your bus. And all that strappiness and prettiness and cutouts and indie boho beauty or corporate chic. It doesn't hold your foot! You have to think about walking, when walking should be unconscious! Even in most sandals, those straps dig, move, blister, etc, and I don't recommend running. Also, toes can be stubbed. So what is the point of these un-shoes? What, I ask you, what?!

Of course, there are comfortable sandals and heels, but a) these are often expensive, b) hard to come by and c) ugly.

Implicitly however, it is creepy how women are kept in inhibiting footwear, mincing about, pretty or not - there are gorgeous heels and fugly sandals, pretty boots and awful lace ups. Looks were never really the reason women wear heels, for beauty is only a justification lent to prove, condone or sell something. In itself it is a meaningless and arbitrary concept. But that one half of the population is hobbled and fettered - and no one bats an eyelid. One can also go into the postural, skeletal and muscular implications of strapping boards and pointy things to the soles of your feet, but that someone won't be me because I truly don't know anything but the obvious: that shot can't be less damaging then oxfords, lace ups, trainers and boots.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating for you all to burn your heels and sandals on a massive pyre  while chanting Germaine Greer exerts. By that virtue I should burn my slutty, arse revealing clothing because it, too, is impractical and pointless, given that beauty is merely a dependent variable, if I care about beauty at all. No, I like to wear my revealing, impractical clothing just as others like to wear heels. But for some reason heels REALLY annoy me. As we speak I am wearing lace up boots with a yellow summer dress, and not my much more aesthetic nude wedges because I NEED TO WALK PLACES AND DO SHIT, not totter around while... Oh wait... Women are people too who also need to do shit, not wonder around dressed in impractical stuff that implies they have no where to go and nothing to do that a more suitably garbed plebeian couldn't do for them. No, women need proper shoes to make their lesser wages with to buy their overpriced and overmarketed shit with, in a world that they already inhabit at a disadvantage

#DiversityInLingerie

Bikini by Kookai

This is not my most flattering photo. I am pretending that I am all earthy and beachy and yoga-ey, like some hip, healthy specimen of a human. I am not. Despite numerous deviations from the 'norm' of how a female should look (lack of stomach muscles, exaggerated lordosis of the spine, hyper-extended knees and WHAT is with my posture?), there are also aspects of me that conform to some unspoken 'norm' of beauty, the tan, the skinniness, and me being so young.

So what does this illustrate? That I am alive, healthy, and grateful for the body I was given. I am not pointing out flaws or good points as if they somehow define me, because they don't. I remember the first time I realized that ones body could be a 'flaw'. I was 14 and opened a magazine and saw an article which helped you make your 'flaws' more appreciated, or some other backhanded title. Was having thick eyebrows (like me) a 'flaw'. Was pale skin a 'flaw' that needed bronzing (at the time it hit me as reverse racism) a flaw? Why where chubby legs bad, did that mean that your genetics had programmed a lesser you with shameful legs?

I think that people everywhere have been making a stink about abolishing the representation of one kind of very white anglo-saxon, skinny 'normal' for too long, and it's time not for the representation of 'curvy', 'real' women at the expense of those WASPY models, because they are also real, but for a representaion of the population as a whole. Especially in lingerie. You either have a very Americanised, skinny, small-breasted model, like so:

Courtesy Victorias Secret

Or if you do not buy from a mainstream brand, with core sizes, and buy full busted bras (like me and my 28f/28ffs), then you have models with hips and breasts that are often over an F or even G cup. Yes, full bust brands may be representing ONE sector of the market, but what about girls who wear full bust sizes that DON'T have 'big boobs' (like me), or hips (me again), or who more voluptuous than the full bust models?

Courtesy Curvy Kate

 No, its time to quietly represent everyone, skinny or not, dark, tanned, alabaster white, eyebrowed, stretch-marked, hesitant and brash. It's time to stop making a big fuss over how 'diverse' a company is being, and how praiseworthy this is. Women are more than the sum of their body, diverse or not. Please just get on with offering what we, as the clients want; a representation of everyone (after all, a companies clients are not cookie-cutter people. Ewa Michalak, http://www.ewa-michalak.pl/, is especially good for this) within advertising campaigns, make a range of skin coloured bras for everyone (I have money. I will buy them! As a side point, it is Ewa Michalak's Toffi bra, http://www.ewa-michalak.pl/product-eng-91-Strapless-Toffi.html, that fits my darker than 'average' skin colour). And then let us quietly get on with our lives, in a world that is just a little more inclusive and pleasant.

Xoxoxox

Princess