Shorties: What to Look for When Buying Heels as a Short Person |
Posted: December 11, 2017 |
When it comes to being blessed with height, my family missed that bus. And, yes, I’ve heard all the jokes in my time. When I was younger, being short was the bane of my existence. I really thought that it was a huge deal and that everyone was – not exactly laughing, but something similar, maybe pitying me. Whatever it was I thought they were doing, it didn’t feel good.
Fortunately, as I've grown up, I’ve come to realise that the vast majority of the time (probably every single time, in fact) they were just engaging in some gentle ribbing, and the reason that I took it so personally was simply that they were highlighting one of my insecurities.
And, just in case you're wondering, I’m short. Very short. I’m 4’10 – that’s actually the cut off for dwarfism. However, I don’t actually have dwarfism at all. The condition is associated with many other issues, such as arms and legs that stop growing but a normal sized torso. Nope, I’m just genetically short and that’s it. I’m in proportion.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand: how do you choose heels as a short person? I’ve had plenty of experience with this and I’m going to share this with you now. Just to put some more context on the type of person I am, I’m a 45-year old office manager, so I’ve spent a relatively long time honing my heel-buying skills, and I have certainly made some mistakes in my time.
First, you need to realise that you are not going to reach the heady heights of the catwalk models – you won’t even reach the heights of the catalogue models. Not unless you wear particularly high heels that will seriously damage your feet, legs, and posture. So, my first piece of advice is to not reach for the stars, but seek to add two or three inches. For me, that brings me up to 5’1”, which is only 2” shorter than average.
When I was younger, I used to wear stupidly high heels, but I ended up damaging my muscles. It resulted in my being unable to play sport because I could no longer place my foot flat. Fortunately, some physiotherapy later and I was all right again – I just needed to stretch my shrunken muscles back out.
It brings me on nicely to my next point: you need to buy shoes made by manufactures that are known to look after their customers’ feet. One of my favourite brands is Waldlaufer boots. They sell a decent range of boots with heels, but the heels are made in such a way that the difference between the toe and the heel isn’t as large as you would normally find with a high heel. They lift the toes as well, but they do it in a way that isn’t obvious, so their boots don’t look like platform boots.
Finally, I would recommend wearing flats for some proportion of the time. If you don’t, you can run into some much worse problems than being short. For me, wearing heels constantly led to a period of time where I couldn’t wear them at all. This was actually a good time for me, because it forced me to reassess my views on height, and it taught me to be much kinder on myself. Being short isn’t the problem that I originally believed it to be, and in fact, other people don’t care or think about it at all!
Good luck out there and I hope my article has helped some of you out.
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