Victoria Beckham has spoken - the heel is back (yes, even if you WFH)

 “I can’t concentrate in flats.”
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Laura Craik22 September 2020

While the Government dithers over lockdown, it is reassuring to know that other leaders remain emphatic about some things. Presenting her spring/summer 2021 collection in the Victoria Miro gallery in east London, Victoria Beckham told the assembled fashion editors that she had had her fill of the lockdown trainers, and was now swearing her allegiance to the heel. “They can be high or kitten,” she pronounced, dressed in a vertiginous pair of “banana” heels from her new collection. “But no more flats for me.”

Such certitude! Perhaps we should put VB in charge of the country. But isn’t she being a tad optimistic? The experts seem to suggest we’re about to be locked down again. Surely the pain of incarceration is acute enough without the added frisson of bunions.

Lockdown hasn’t been kind to the those parts of the fashion industry who cater to the cocktail hour. In July, the CEO of Capri Holdings, Jimmy Choo’s owner, noted his concerns about “the dress shoe business”. Beckham is also synonymous with heels, wearing them with more ardour than Dolly Parton, Ivana Trump and Joan Collins combined. Even her 2006 autobiography was titled That Extra Half an Inch, while she also once claimed: “I can’t concentrate in flats.”

From a business point of view, her renewed loyalty to heels makes sense. All designers are refocusing on what their customers really, really want from them: if VB’s customers love heels, then heels they will get.

Besides, maybe Beckham is on to something. If the first lockdown was all about sweatpants, wearing the same socks three days in a row and a meek, terry-towelling acquiescence, maybe the second one, if it is to happen, requires a different approach. Maybe we shouldn’t retreat into our comfortable old civvies without a fight. Nobody is advocating doing the dishes in five-inch stilettos, but there are few mundane activities that can’t be improved by the donning of a small but stylish kitten heel.

Remember that first visit to the pub, and how good it felt to be wearing a dress again? Or how convivial it was to revisit your favourite restaurant in your favourite heels? In much the same way as we became accustomed to eating restaurant food at home, maybe we can become accustomed to recreating the excitement of dressing up to go out, but from the sanctity of our own living rooms. I’m calling it Dress Up to Help Out. Who knows: maybe it’ll catch on.

@LauraCraik

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