Cannes To Female Stars: Heel!

The latest kerfuffle out of the Cannes Film Festival is that some ladies were turned away for not wearing ankle-turning shoes:

A group of women in their 50s were turned away from the gala screening of Todd Haynes’s Carol for allegedly not wearing high-heeled shoes, according to industry newspaper Screen Daily. The women, some of whom had medical conditions, were apparently barred entry for wearing rhinestone flats.

EVEN WOMEN IN THEIR FIFTIES attending a lesbian feminist movie based on a Patricia Highsmith novel are not allowed to wear shiny, fancy, ever-so-slightly more sensible shoes. I know Hollywood likes to pretend youth lasts forever, but come on.

“Everyone should wear flats, to be honest. We shouldn’t wear high heels,” said [Emily] Blunt, when asked about the controversy at the Sicario press conference. “That’s very disappointing, just when you kind of think there are these new waves of equality.”

Sicario director Denis Villeneuve joked that he and Blunt’s co-stars, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin, would wear high heels to the premiere in solidarity. Del Toro then mimed wobbling along the red carpet from his seat. However, Villeneuve and his actors wore men’s shoes when they appeared on the red carpet before the early evening premiere.

Also critical of the dress code was Asif Kapadia, director of the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy which premiered in Cannes last week. Kapadia tweeted that his wife had initially been denied entry to the screening because of her footwear, but was eventually allowed in.

How much more expensive are heels than flats? And how much money do women spend on footwear over the course of their lives so as to meet this arbitrary beauty standard?

Here’s a list of the World’s Ten Most Expensive Stilettos, the intro of which serves as a refresher of the kind of gushing nonsense we’re dealing with:

It’s no secret that women love shoes, and the more attractive, fancy, and stylish the shoes are, the better.

On a special occasion women are unlikely to be found wearing flip flops or Crocs. No, she’ll most likely be wearing some sort of high heel or stiletto. Women buy shoes for all kinds of reasons — maybe they’re simply gorgeous, or they might be iconic and even historical, or new and trendy. Some women have even admitted to taking their shoe passion too far, like Celine Dion’s 3,000 pair collection.

A good shoe is worth any amount of pain and any amount of money, though the extravagant stilettos on this list might be out of most people’s price range. These are the kinds of heels that turn women into divas and princesses — show-stoppers and head-turners. As our shoe lady Carrie Bradshaw says, “The fact is, sometimes it’s hard to walk in a woman’s shoes. That’s why we need really special ones now and then to make the walk a little more fun.”

The article goes on to fawn over heels that cost six-figures a pair.

Our friends at ealuxe manage to find some even more expensive heels — over a million dollars a pair, some of them! — while also insisting that women love shoes and can’t spend enough on them.

I mean, I like shoes, sure. They keep my feet dry! Sometimes they come in fun colors and complete an outfit. For the most part I run around in flats or low wedges because, well, I run around; I’m on my feet a lot and one can’t be active in stilettos. Even regular heels are a pain. They can be hard to wear and even harder to maintain in good condition. I splurged on a pair of pretty pastel Frye heels once and after I’d worn them three times they looked like something I found on the street. Lesson learned: buy shoes in darker colors.

Virtually the only heels I get excited about are Fluevogs, because they manage to be visually interesting and yet also comfortable and well-made. Sadly, at several hundred dollars a pair, I can’t afford a Fluevog habit. Hey, though, look: the flats are affordable!

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