Particularly Spazzy Tyra Teaches You To Walk In Heels

Do you want to spend five minutes of your life watching André Leon Talley sit Tyra Banks on his knee and talk in goofy voices about stilettos? Of course you do. Talley offers a brief history of high-heeled footwear, while Tyra bops around sharing tips for how to walk in heels and how to make them slightly less fucking painful. Clue: hairspray!

Things to note about this video:

1. Tyra uses so many convoluted turns of phrase (“Please do not use stilettos as a means for weaponry, this is for mere entertainment purposes only”) you’d think she was a freshman comp student trying to pad her way to the word limit. But fiercer!
2. Probably neither Andre Perugia nor Salvatore Ferragamo came up with the idea of attaining greater heel height with minimal heel diameter by reinforcing the heel with a metal pin; we simply don’t know who invented the stiletto. Fun fact: after years spent dressing half of Hollywood, Ferragamo went to college to study anatomy to figure out why his shoes hurt so damn much.
3. What Ty-Ty says about balance is correct.
4. Hairspray? That one was news to me. I decided to try it with a pair of Italian-made genuine crocodile stiletto pumps I bought on 80%-off red-sticker sale for $89 at DSW in 2009 and have only worn out of the house once since because it turns out they really do fucking hurt like a motherfucker. To use the technical term. (Think ow-my-blisters-are-bleeding inside of three hours hurt.) Now that the fumes have cleared, I can report that aside from the insides of the shoes feeling really sticky, there has been no real change in my levels of discomfort. Fuck these shoes. Fuck these fucking pretty pretty shoes so much.
5. “That takes me back to the days of 54” is probably the highest praise one could give a person or a dance move or a shoe, ever.

A stylist friend of ours once said that how comfortable you will find most high heels — stilettos or no — depends on the height of your arches. Most flat-footed folks allegedly find heels easy to walk in, while higher-arched feet don’t do so well. I have no idea if this is true, but it kind of makes intuitive sense. (Sadie, our resident heels-wearer, reports that she has somewhat flat feet, for what it’s worth.) And all the hairspray and Insolia orthotics and gel inserts in the world won’t change the height of your arches.