Taking in the spring runway shows in New York in September, I couldn’t help but notice how many of my fashion friends and peers had transformed themselves over the summer: They were now tan, yes, and thinner—but also, suddenly, taller.
Surveying the high heels across the front row at Fforme, I was reminded of Raye’s anthemic call for women to step into their Jimmy Choos and stand in their power (“Click-click-click-clack symphony, I need that”).
“I think there’s a real return to sexy, feminine dressing right now, and heels are naturally part of that,” Brigitte Chartrand, Net-a-Porter’s chief buying and merchandising officer, told me after the show from atop her own pair of black-and-mint-green Chanel pumps.
Illustration by Ana Terrall
This renaissance includes everything from Tom Ford’s two-toned slingbacks to Saint Laurent’s suede penny loafers—uplifted by a 4.3-inch heel. After the pandemic, I was convinced I’d never wear heels again; mere weeks ago, though, I found myself chasing down a pair of four-inch satin Aurore heels at the Dior boutique on Madison Avenue. (With a rosette the size of a pastry on the front, the shoes attracted me as much for their flirtatiousness as for their height.) “A high heel equals attitude,” says Nina Christen, Dior’s shoe design director (and the founder of her own eponymous brand), who sees their resurgence as a form of self-care which forces one to slow down and move intentionally. Movement director Emma Chadwick, who had models in heels bounding down subway steps for Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show in December, agrees about heels’ transforma- tive effects, both physically (“It elongates the line”) and mentally (“It helps create a character to transform into”).
The revival, however, is a new proposition for a generation with no muscle memory for heels. Trying on a pair of Coach slingbacks with a three-inch block heel, I faced my bedroom mirror. My posture had collapsed, and I was pitched forward like a ski jumper. Before I could feel high and mighty, I would need to master standing up straight.
“Your posture cannot be passive in heels,” Emily Splichal, a podiatrist and human movement expert, tells me. As a former personal trainer with a weakness for Chris- tian Louboutin’s Dolly mule, Splichal created a workout for heel-wearing women, and under her guidance I focus on keeping my balance evenly spread over my entire foot. Engage the abs and pelvic floor, she tells me, but also: Shift my weight back in the heel—and don’t forget to breathe. So I’m thumping around my apartment in my own click-clack symphony. It’s not great for my neighbors—but I’m enjoying the view from here.
