Each of these women could afford any shoe in the world, and each has told the public what heels did to her feet. Each one also changed something afterward, though the changes did not look alike.
Naomi Campbell Went Down In 9-Inch Platforms And Got Up Laughing
In Paris in 1993, Naomi Campbell walked for Vivienne Westwood in a pair of blue mock-croc platforms about 9 inches high. She fell on the runway in front of the cameras. Laughing as she got up, she finished the walk.
Years later she asked an interviewer a question of her own: “When I fell down, you worried?” He told her she had been all right, and he added that he knew she was “kind of issuing bravado really.” Then he set out the feelings he supposed she had felt that day: “I think you were annoyed and abandoned and a bit hurt and worried.” He offered her four feelings to pick from, and she turned all of them down.
“I was embarrassed,” she said.
Though she had walked off that runway embarrassed, the shoes went on to a far grander life. The exact pair is now held in the V&A collection in London, and in 2024 the museum built a whole exhibition, NAOMI: In Fashion, around her career. The platforms that put her on the floor were given a glass case, but the embarrassment stayed with the woman who wore them.
Sarah Jessica Parker Ran In Heels Until Her Foot Grew A Bone
Parker has hoofed around New York in high heels long enough to have deformed her own feet, and that is close to how she tells it herself. The numbers in her account deserve their own lines:
- 18-hour days in heels, literally running in them, never taking them off.
- 10 years of working that way before anything stopped her.
- 1 twisted ankle on the set, and 1 extra bone a foot doctor found she had created in her foot.
She listened to the doctor once the ankle went. Heels stayed for premieres and with dresses, whereas while she is taking care of her kids she keeps it a little flatter.
There is a quiet second chapter which most retellings skip. In 2014 she founded the SJP line with George Malkemus, who had worked beside Manolo Blahnik for years, and the collection is handmade by skilled Italian shoemakers. Sparkly kitten heels sit in it, satin sandals sit in it, and so do block heel booties and pointy flats at about half the price. The woman whose character wore the iconic Manolos now sells the non-stiletto options too.
Victoria Beckham Spent A Career In Stilettos And Then Put On Sneakers
Of the three, Beckham took the longest to give in. Her story came out over more than a decade, so it reads best stage by stage.
The Stilettos Came First And The Bunions Followed
She built her image on stilettos, from the Spice Girls years through her time in Madrid and Los Angeles as a footballer’s wife. Through the 2000s, the British press kept a watch on her feet as well as her clothes.
- What the papers reported:
- bunions, mentioned again and again through the decade
- talk of surgery at one point
Seeing those photographs now, you can almost hear the shoes complaining.
She Said It Out Loud In 2016
After she had shown her own label at New York Fashion Week, she said the line her feet had been waiting years to hear: “I just can’t do heels any more.” From a woman whose look had been built on stilettos, the sentence read like a resignation letter.
Flats And Sneakers Carry Her Now
These days she runs her shows and her public life in flats and sneakers.
- Before:
- stilettos as the signature
- bunions in the papers
- After:
- heels given up in her own words
- flats and sneakers at her own shows
When the designer herself turns up at her own show in sneakers, her customers need not argue the point any longer.
A 12-Hour Shift Is Hard On Feet Even Without A Runway
These three women had stylists, money and the pick of any shoe ever made, yet their feet still gave out on them. A nurse, a server or a warehouse picker standing through a 12-hour shift has far less cover than that.
What have your feet put up with on your longest day at work?