PIt’s surprising that they take the elevator. The class takes place on the twelfth floor in Manhattan. The women who arrive have a pair of shoes in their bag, they come there to learn to walk in them. Their teacher, Olga Kuznetcova, is of Russian origin. She lives in New York, near Lincoln Center and its performance halls. When she saw the taxis arriving and elegant women getting out, walking hesitantly on their pumps, she said to herself that they needed help.
In three years, since the appearance of Covid-19 and with the rise of feminism, no one sees the point in wearing shoes that hurt their feet. Among the women who came to take walking classes on heels at $80 an hour, one participant has not worn such shoes since the pandemic. Others want to (re)learn how to walk perched in preparation for an event, like those who take three months of waltz lessons to be able to open the ball. Moreover, a young woman came for her wedding in January.
They learned about the course on social networks where Alissa, Olga’s daughter, posts extracts that she filmed. The teacher asked the students not to bring stilettos longer than 12 centimeters. A former model, she takes them across a room by walking on a wooden slat placed on the floor in order to learn to put one foot in front of the other. Olga Kuznetcova lists everything that betrays the gait of someone who does not know how to walk perched: furtively looking everywhere around you to see who realizes that you are not walking normally, looking at your feet, tucking your shoulders in to make it smaller because we’re not used to being so big…
An “act of endurance”
Twelve floors down, next door, on the Ve Avenue, all the women are in sneakers. Olga Kuznetcova knows it well, New York is “sneaker city”. When we ask her if she doesn’t have the impression of addressing a market in dire straits at a time when Crocs is releasing a pair of cowboy boots and Birkenstock is entering the stock market, she believes precisely that her sessions will remain necessary since “women want to continue to wear Louboutins, Manolo Blahniks”. The thirty-year-old is sure of it, “Women will continue to wear heels for occasions when men wear a suit and tie.”
American political news seems to prove him right. The Republican Party primary debates systematically line up a lineup of candidates in suits and ties, from which emerges a woman, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s former governor and UN ambassador, who not only wears high heels, but also does not Don’t miss an opportunity to talk about it. From her campaign entry speech in February, she explained that, “when you defend yourself, it hurts more if you wear heels”. And when, during the November 8 debate, a candidate called her a “Dick Cheney in 3-inch heels,” she corrected “of 15”.
You have 20% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.