Did it ever occur to you that there are women and men that goes to shoe shop and don’t find their sizes? Several brands, even in Europe and USA, in high heels section only goes until the size 40. So, where does women and man who wants to wear a high heel shoe go to shop then?
Formal shoes are an essential part of working and social life, so for women and men who don’t fit into them, practically the only thing they can do is buy too-tight shoes out of desperation. Or they must buy casual shoes or sneakers, but women, trans women, drag queens, gender fluid and non-binary men with big feet don’t want to wear casual flat shoes and trainers all the time. They also want a beautiful high heel, handmade, elegant to go out on a date, to party, to go to clubs, weddings, celebrations, etc.
Inclusivity is “trend word” now, but many people think that if you have one single option it is enough. Although, there are others who spend their whole life with no option of formal, elegant, party shoes. Since they have so many options, they don’t care or think about that as form of oppression. Oppression, as writer and social activist Bell Hooks once wrote, is the absence of choices. Sneakers could a safe option for many people, but there are others who wants and desires other types of shoes, especially high heels.
Since the 1970s, women’s and men’s feet have grown at least two sizes bigger. This is down to genetics and richer diets, meaning we are growing bigger and living longer, with our feet spreading as we age. There is so much cultural stigma surrounding women with big feet, these stats can only signpost a much larger truth. According to research by the clothing brand Long Tall Sally, 40 percent of us haven’t measured our feet in the past decade. The reality is women’s feet are longer and wider than we would all like to think and admit.
Shoe size remains a symbol of the “physical characteristics that are associated with gender differences”. The repetition of this imagery normalizes an association of shoes with successful, sexy and strong women, and marginalizes women whose shoes never fit. So much ideology is tied up within footwear for women that if a woman enters a store and is told her size does not exist, she is also being denied her female identity. This is even more cruel to members of LGBTQIA+ community, because a major part of trans women does not have female “regular size” feet, increase their dysphoria and making then squeeze their feet into 2 or 3 sizes smaller than their regular shoe size. And on top of that, there is also the problem of the width of the shoe lasts which to matter of aesthetic have been reduce to narrower standard that is not accordantly to a human foot. So even if a brand has larger sizes like 44 or 45, they tend to be very narrow for queer’s feet. There are big cultural ideologies that pressure costumers into believing that they do not physically fit into the norms reinforced by retailers, they feel they must violently alter themselves to have a social standing. This happens more often on high heels shoes. The sociocultural pressure placed on clients who wear high heels to buy ill-fitting shoes comes down to shoe manufacturers not accommodating a broader range of shoe widths and sizes. For every size of shoe, a bespoke ‘last’ (a three-dimensional foot-shaped mold on which each shoe is made) needs to be created – which is expensive. A lot of brands seem unwilling to take the economic risk of creating larger high heels shoe sizes, because for so long women have bought ill-fitting shoes and accepted the pain. This is counterintuitive – like clothing diversity, the only way to normalize it is to have adequate representation in stores.
That is the main goal of VivaaH Viana’s brand: sizing inclusive high heels. That is why our shoes are custom made, because we invest in bespoke lasts unique in the market to fit not only the length of the foot, but also the width of it. Our shoes are project to make queer, trans, non-binary, gender fluid, cis women and cis men look elegant, beautiful and expensive. We have made-to-order high heels shoes, boots and sandals until the size 45/46. All handmade in Spain with a variety of colors and different materials. We are the 1st inclusive high-end custom-made shoes brand in the world. We believe in the inclusivity on the world of extremely high heels and our motto is “High Heels for All”, because life would be so boring to spent on flat men’s shoes or sneakers. Choose us, because we already choose you!