These days my wardrobe is best described as “freelance-writer chic”. Which is to say, I feel dressed up when my socks match. Once upon a time, however, I was a trainee corporate lawyer and dressed like one – tottering around in a state of constant panic and very high heels. I was, as you may have guessed, not really cut out for corporate law. After I eventually gave up both the law and my heels, my feet took several years to recover from the abuse. It had been a sole-destroying job. For a while I had to tiptoe everywhere when I didn’t have shoes on because the heels had mucked up my achilles tendons and calf muscles.
Despite the fact that they disfigured my feet, I still have a soft spot for heels. They make your legs look great and you feel instantly powerful. Apart from the pain and the impracticality, what’s not to like? So it is with mixed feelings – but comfortable feet – that I watch them die a slow death. Heels have been on the way out for years now, their demise supercharged by the pandemic. Kids these days don’t wear heels out clubbing, according to a recent viral TikTok from an influencer who wondered “whether we [millennials] need to come out of retirement and teach the girls how to wear heels”. And per the Economist, even the French have kicked off their heels.
Now there’s a new sign that heels aren’t coming back anytime soon: Sarah Jessica Parker’s namesake shoe line is shutting down. Parker launched the brand in 2014, capitalising on the fact that her Sex and the City character, Carrie Bradshaw, was renowned for her shoe collection. Mr Big even proposed to Carrie with a pair of blue satin Manolo Blahniks. The fact that the patron saint of uncomfortable footwear is shutting down her shoe company feels like the end of an era. That said, if you still love heels, don’t let gen Z tell you that you can’t wear them to the club. As SJP might say, a woman has a right to shoes.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
