Strategy of the Stilletos
Manolo says, look the Manolo’s friend the Miss Meghan she is running the seminar at the 92nd Street Y!
Whether you’re a seasoned Manolo wearer or just bought your first pair of three-inch spiky wonders, you are going to need a Stiletto Strategy©! Let Meghan Cleary, author of The Perfect Fit: What Your Shoes Say About You, help you develop your own Stiletto Strategy©.We’ll explore which stilettos are best for what occasion, why walking in them is like Pilates, and how to pad up your favorite pair for a looong night on the town!
Meghan Cleary, a.k.a. Miss Meghan, believes a woman’s favorite pair of shoes is a window into her soul. The kind of shoe a woman wears can signal her taste in clothing, her career goals and even her ideal mate. Discover what your shoes say about you and learn to love your inner stiletto!
This it sounds like good shoe-based fun.
February 17th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Important addendum:
If you are going to an event held in a 110-year-old mansion, and the owners request that you take off your shoes to help preserve the original hardwood floors, DO NOT WEAR STILETTOS.
Not only are the floors covered with little dents, we have actual holes in the floorboards. HOLES. In the beautiful 110-year-old hardwood floors whose preservation is part of my job.
Manolo, as a lover both of antiquities and of shoes, I beseech you: is it unreasonable of us to ask that people remove their shoes? The no-shoe policy used to be in place to prevent excess dirt being tracked in, and we would allow shoes that had not been outside in the snow and mud, but now apparently we have to worry about women wearing shoes which cause permanent damage.
I love a good pair of heels as much as the next girl, but when you’ve been told that the floors are old and thus not as sturdy as new hardwood floors, isn’t it common sense to avoid wearing the spikey chisel shoes? If one is going to break the no-shoe rule, should not one wear the harmless pair of flats? Even as the housekeeper, I would be fine with people wearing shoes into the house, so long as they were clean and not apt to puncture the floors — but because people have no sense we have been forced to ban the shoes outright until we can figure out something better.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:18 am
The Sybil brings up the very very important problem. In the early days of the Republic, the Mrs. Madison, she had provided the carpet slippers for the peoples visiting the house of the President, so that their muddy boots would not destroy the carpet. Can the House which concerns the Sybil provide the cheap, yet disposable footwear? Perhaps (and La BellaDonna is happy there is finally a Good Use) the disposable flippy-flops used by professional pedicurists? There could be the sign: “High heels not permitted. Flip flops $2 of the American Dollars. Thank you for your understanding and for helping to preserve our heritage!”
The number of the dollars, it is to be understood, should cover the cost of the flippety-flops, and perhaps a little more to help restore the poor floorboards.
It should also be understood that back in the day (La BellaDonna has read this), many a museum refused to let the ladies wear their steel stilettos inside for this very reason, and they wandered the museums carrying their shoes in their hands.
February 17th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Sibyl, I NEVER allow people to wear shoes in my house, which is 80 some years old and has lovely wood floors. NO SHOES EVER, not even flat ones. When I have a party or event, I tell people beforehand that they should bring heavy socks or slippers to wear if it’s cold, and since we live in FLA no one minds being barefoot in the spring, summer and fall. And no one has ever objected to my No Shoes policy. In fact, they are always highly amused by the pile up of footwear by the front door.
It’s your house honey, you make the rules. Tell folks that it’s symbolic of leaving the daily burdens behind.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Hola to the Nancy. Perhaps La BellaDonna has misunderstood, but she thinks that the house for which the Sibyl cares is not the domicile of the Sibyl, but the Historic Treasure Open To The Public. This, it requires some of the different rules than for the private domicile. La BellaDonna likes to think that if anyone is visiting a private home, of the course the visitor will want to make her host/hostess happy!
La BellaDonna likes to think, too, that the peoples who go to visit Historic Treasures would like them to be intact for the next generations to enjoy and appreciate, also.
February 17th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
La BellaDonna is partially right; it is the Historic Treasure Open To The Public, but it is also the Bed and Breakfast. We have many visitors for many different purposes, and it is difficult to know what policy ought to be.
For the casual visitor, and the overnight guest, requiring shoe removal is not so bad. For the tours which we have, we provide fabric shoe-covers of the sort which doctors wear, to avoid the dirt and mud being tracked in. But for the elegant events — the weddings, the dinners — it seems gauche to ask the well-dressed ladies to wander about in pantyhose-feet, or to wear flipflops or slippers, and the little disposable booties do not negate the effect of the spike heel.
On the other hand, we have holes in the floor. It is a dilemma.
February 18th, 2006 at 1:28 am
The Martha is fascinated by this exchange. Fashion punctures heritage? Who would have thunk.
She would also like to give a shout-out to Miss Meghan, a sister reader in the nifty erotic reading series at the Happy Ending lounge. Not only is she a gifted shoe guide, she writes some great poetry. And is an all-around goddess.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:46 am
It doesn’t matter whether your hardwood floor is 110 years old or brand new, a 125 lb woman in a pair of stilletos exerts 2000 lbs of pressure on the heel of her shoe. A brand new hardwood or vinyl floor can be absolutely ruined by the stilleto heels of one woman. If you check through the websites of hardwood flooring and vinyl flooring companies, you will see that they all state that an elephant exerts about 30 lbs of pressure on their feet, but a 125 lb woman exerts 2000!
I just completed a remodeling job on my home in time for my daughter’s bridal shower, which the bridesmaids were holding at my house. My husband and I beat our brains out for FIVE MONTHS cleaning, painting, polishing, remodeling and otherwise going over every sqare inch of our home. My sister invited a friend of hers and she arrived with 4 inch stilleto heels. I apologized for asking her to remove her stilletos, explaining that it was the ONLY INSTRUCTION from the hardwood floor expert that I had paid $4000 to sand and refinish my floors: NO STILLETO HEELS. She immediately took an attitude as though I were trying to ruin her day and I lowered my eyes and left the room to attend to something - I went out and waited for a few minutes to let her think it over. When I came back into the room, as she walked all through my nice dining room, kitchen and den - denting my floors - I looked at her shoes, then I looked her square in the eye. She said, “I”m not taking off my shoes.” She was furious with me! Two minutes later she slammed out of my house.
Since his parents are coming out to the west coast from New York, we invited them to have the rehearsal dinner in our home. Now I’m wondering how I’m going to handle the problem of stilleto heels with this group of 40 people.
I question whether I have an obligation, as the hostess of a party in my private home, to allow a guest to cause hundreds or thousands of dollars in damage to my house. Its one thing to track in mud, which can be cleaned. It is quite another thing to feel you have the right to come into someone’s home and create dents in every room you visit. Stilleto heels look great and they have become popular again, which is fine, but they are hell on hardwood, vinyl and carpeted floors. People who wear them should be aware of the damage they cause to their host’s home.