By Dr. Paula Bloom
As part of my New Year’s resolution I am committed to being comfortable. There are things about me I can change and things that I can’t. Society gives us so many messages about how we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to wear. For me it was around age 10 that I decided that comfort didn’t matter but rather wearing clothing that was in style somehow did. I remember getting ready to go to a roller skating party (a true child of the early 80′s). While my mom wrapped the rainbow/unicorn themed gift, I was laying down on my bed rubbing the zipper of my new very dark, and very tight, jeans with candle wax to make the zipper glide more easily. Suck in the gut and zip those suckers up. I think back with such sadness for that little girl that would restrain her movement in order to feel accepted.
I have always really liked boots. Growing up in the heat of South Florida I never really got to wear them during the year. In the summers, I would travel to Chile to stay with my grandparents. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, it would be the dead of winter during our summer. I loved it and remember walking around the city of Santiago and seeing women in tall boots and mid-calf skirts and thinking how cool they looked. I associated boots with sophistication.
Around age 18 I realized that my legs were such that most tall boots wouldn’t fit. Unfortunately, unlike our bellies, there is no way to suck in your calves. With the advent of stretchy fibers though, jeans and boots have been changed forever. Comfort AND style? Finally!
I love tall boots. They look so chic with jeans inside of them, a classic look with a skirt. It’s such a bummer when you see all those cute styles and pretty much give up on ever owning a pair if you, like me, have more muscular calves. My almost 70 yr old mother-in-law told me she bought a pair of tall boots simply because they fit her (she had given up on tall boots years ago because of her calf size, too). She said she balanced herself on the boots in the store but when she put them on at home to go out she realized…”I can’t walk in these things, what was I thinking?” Enter FootSmart.com’s wide-calf boots.
If you have athletic calves and, if like me, you wear bootleg pants and want to be able to tuck your pants into your boots, wide-shaft boots do the trick. I have been wearing Naturalizer’s Keepsake Wide-Shaft Boots in elephant skin suede for the past few months. They look chic and modern with a fitted all-black outfit yet also look fabulous with a more loose-cut bohemian look. The stretch panel in the back is black and I like how that vertical line elongates my legs. Check out my review, my username is TheShoeShrink.
I have worn these boots everywhere. I’ve worn them to events at my kids’ school, holiday parties and even during various TV interviews on national cable news shows. I get compliments wherever I go. So if you think you can’t wear tall boots think again. There is no need to try to suck in those calves anymore!
The Shoe Shrink in her Naturalizer Keepaske Wide-Shaft Boots in elephant skin:
