Sexy or Slutty - Where do you stand on High Heels?

In an interview with Emine Sinmaz last month, French actress Catherine Deneuve, one of film’s all time sex symbols, challenged the notion that woman have no chance of being sexy without a pair of towering high heels.

The French actress said that mid heels are much more alluring and she consciously chose mid heels that weren’t too high when she played the role of a bourgeois housewife who became a prostitute in the film Belle de Jour (1967).  Despite an initially frosty reception from audiences and fashion experts, the shoes eventually became a huge hit with over 200,000 sold in one year to customers including Jackie Onassis and the Duchess of Windsor.  Deneuve says ‘It’s something that comes out of a slightly twisted desire which, for that matter, makes for a rather twisted way of walking.  I suspect that it has its origins in the minds of the designers, designers who have pushed the limits, who were imagining an extreme woman … nowadays a silhouette must be strong; it must create an effect, make an impact – all these powerful words.  She goes on ‘a simple well-made shoe with the perfect arch is such a pleasure.  It makes us walk differently; we feel free, emancipated, as if we can deal with life’s challenges’ and goes on to remind us that in the sixties, high-heeled shoes were ‘for women of ill repute.  They were reserved for those who were obliged by their profession to live up to a caricature’.

Well sorry Catherine, but I beg to differ:  mid-heels or flats are great for an average long day at work, serious shopping expeditions and trips to the beach, but when it comes to making a presentation at a sticky meeting, or a seriously good night out, it’s go high or go home as far as I’m concerned.  And kitten heels?  Please, destroy them all now.   Okay, so keep your high heels slender and keep them classy – these aren’t slag heels, these are weapons of power!  Victoria Beckham and Sarah Jessica Parker aren’t famed for being tarty, are they?  Seriously, once you have learned the secret of how to walk in them (toes down first, head high, hips forward), those heels are going to give you more value per inch than most other things on offer out there.  So come on girls – let’s get out there and strut our stuff whilst we can.