One day in world capitals in heels instead of sneakers
Fashion lately sharply headed for comfort, unpretentiousness and self-irony - it’s no secret that designers now carefully study the style of residents of large cities and adapt themselves to their requests, and not vice versa. And the requests are clear. In an accelerated pace of life, we first need to feel comfortable and relaxed: we simply no longer have the strength or desire to spend 12 hours a day on heels and correct makeup several times a day, trying to match how a woman should “look” .
Many of us exchanged shoes for sneakers or rough shoes, and in response, reproaches fell out that we had forgotten how to look feminine - we should at least recall the comments on the material of our colleagues, where fashionable Muscovites showed their winter looks. But there is one more reason why we began to dress gender-neutral: skirts, heels and make-up with styling, and especially all together, inevitably draw us too much attention on the street, and not so much that catcolling is very nice (although some think differently ). We decided to conduct an experiment and asked four women in the world's capitals to change for one day from their usual jeans and sweatshirts to skirts and dresses - and then tell us what came of it.
London
Anastasiya Tikhonova, Photographer, 31 years
For three years of living in London, I did not understand when and where to run into signs of attention. Whether you are wearing leopard tights, a hat with a leather jacket or a dress to the floor, the odds are about the same. Sometimes it seems that when you wear sports gear, and the red face from running, the chances are the most.
I remember when I went to the opera - on the subway - in a white jacket, flowing dress to the floor and with a white clutch, people measured me with condescending looks. The British themselves explain it by class: if you are so smart, what are you doing in the subway? In the opera I looked like it was in place (but again, it seems, since most visitors to the royal opera look like they stopped to see their parents), and when I went to drink wine at the nearest open pub late, visitors again met with ostentatious indifference.
Another time, a make-up girlfriend made me a beautiful Smoky Aiz and we went to the bars of Notting Hill. The sensations were as if I were a tame monkey: a lot of attention, but not the one I wanted. As if on my forehead I had a sign "do not fit - will kill." But once I waited for a taxi on the street in the center (we were driving on the costumed birthday of one wealthy man): I had a female “bowler hat” on my head, men's shoes and stockings on my legs, a black and white graphic dress and a coat on my shoulders. A passing young man stopped and said that I looked stylistically flawless. It was a pleasure. Several times (in completely different places) the girls approached and recorded the name of my perfume.
During this experiment, I decided to approach the question differently: I dressed elegantly, but not “elegantly”, red lips, a careful, but not strong make-up, heels that I usually don’t wear at all - and went to meet my friend. We went to the exhibition in "Tate", and then just walked at random, going to different cafes. I think that if I wore jeans, attention would be exactly the same. No one tried to meet, talk or treat a cocktail. Just glanced, sometimes smiling.
Still, I find it easier to dress in London than in Moscow. Here I can afford stupid hats, a crumpled look and leopard tights. And while receiving compliments from strangers. To hell with them, with heels, really.
Berlin
Polina Medvedeva, Jewelry Designer, 31 years old
In the entire history of my relationship with this silk narrow evening gown, I wore it twice: once at the request of my friend and the second time for the current experiment. In Moscow, of course, there would be more reasons to dress up like this. So, when you are wearing a silk dress, like Bond's girlfriend, and underwear with lace, you have a feeling that you are smeared with honey or some special cloud of electricity is around you. Approximately the same feelings arise in the summer, when you find yourself on the street in shorts, in which every time you are afraid to leave the house. The funniest thing is that I live in Neukölln - this is a former poor district that artists have now inhabited. Although all of Berlin, at least east, is far from being about lace underwear or heels. I immediately remembered the story about my model girlfriend, who “never felt so ridiculous” as putting on her first and last time in Berlin shoes - to the Prada party - and being the only guest in her heels. In my personal experience, this story also exists. I remember how I spontaneously went to the Moscow Chanel show in sneakers and was the only one between Alena Doletskaya and Renata Litvinova without heels, desperately hiding behind Sveta Lizogubenko’s back and hollow cheeks. In general, the concepts of dressing and dress code are very relative. In Moscow, the club will not be allowed in sneakers, in the "Berghine" - in shoes. Anyway, in a dress and stockings you always feel elegant and, I will not hide, very nice. Grace - this is what comes from you, and this is a great pleasure. Although, going out in the morning for a coffee in an oversize jacket and trousers, I feel no less pleasure - just because everything is fine and uplifting. The only thing that unnerved me this time was the light Smokey Ays. Still, I do not like make, although many of my friends quite naturally use mascara and shadows even during the day. It’s always hard for me to do makeup, so in the middle of the day in the atelier I confess I washed myself, because it was no longer possible to endure. But what I really adore is my gold diamond earrings in the form of heliotrope flowers: I went through them in the evening, and in the evening put on crystal wings. However, these earrings are a common thing for me, I often wear them when I want to look great and successful. In general, Berlin is as democratic as possible: there are so many strangely dressed people here that I don’t think that I somehow stood out. In the subway, for example, I was traveling in a carriage with a boy with a make-up, long hair and in tights, by the way cute, so everyone in the car looked at him if anyone even looked (it was in the Hermann Platz area). And nobody looked at me except this boy. In Berlin there are a lot of beautifully dressed people, in Berlin I was once looked at by Tom Hanks (I still remember that I was wearing Comme des Garçons trousers). So I plan to continue to experiment here with dresses and heliotropic necklaces for parties that I go with my friend Bond. It is this person who is my main audience, and he is very interested in my ability to dress up for him (and a little for myself).
Kiev
Daria Nifontova, Marketing Manager, 20 years
From six to fourteen years, I was engaged in artistic gymnastics. When after school you need to rush to the training session (and at the same time drag two backpacks and a cover with heavy objects), it is better not to get out of the sneakers. A little later, I changed gymnastics to jogging, and then I became a master of sports in lying on the couch, but the love of convenience with me seems to be forever (as well as sports injuries that turn heels to torture). Since July of this year, I have stopped working in the office and, accordingly, consciously put on and make up - now I have enough jeans that I wear from the 11th grade, hoodie and eyebrow pencil, without which I look like a chronically ill person.
For the experiment, I connived a little and still didn’t put on the dress - I was limited to steady but high heels, sexy skinny jeans (at least so I see them), ornaments (usually I limit silly bandz and rings, I love rings) and arrows, which of the 13-year-old Kalmyk child turn me into a real Asian beauty.
My boyfriend was pleased with the transformation - in any case, he didn’t call his names and didn’t try to escape from me on the street. I often dress like a city crazy girl and combine workouts with purple lipstick, so going into femininity was rather a pleasant event than shocking. But, in general, boyfriends are unreliable people, and until I pressed him to the wall and asked "on a scale from 0 to 10, how sexy and feminine do I look today?", He seems to have not noticed the difference at all. To some extent this is nice, but I also want to give a book on the head, I tried so hard!
Fortunately for me and unfortunately for the experiment, the people around did not treat me somehow especially - perhaps the fact is that Kiev had a pleasant autumn day, the streets were full of divinely beautiful women, and I don’t looked especially cool. Perhaps the fact is that on that day I didn’t change my habitual facial expression called “brick face” to a friendly smile — unfamiliar people (and even acquaintances) approach me so rarely because they are afraid. I want to believe that I am just so good that people do not think that they have a chance, but I think the matter is in a gloomy expression of the face. In general, in my whole life, strangers tried to roll up to me only a couple of times, and in Kiev (I left Moscow a little over a year ago), it was only once: the young man admitted touchingly that he wanted to buy me a flower, but as the saleswoman had no change, he simply wished me good evening. I consider this a blessing of heaven rather than proof of my unattractiveness.
Choosing clothes longer than five minutes, I was terribly pleased - it helps to gather and feel confident. Looking feminine is wildly pleasant, and not at all because “God so ordered”, but because it is perceived as taking care of your moral and physical condition - beautifully wearing your body, you feel how pleasant and important each part of it is, and cosmetics helps not only to cover up the pimple on the chin, but also to once again recall that I have an epicantus, which is perfectly underlined by the arrows, and the ruddy one looks much healthier and more cheerful. There are no pluses without minuses, and my knees will long remember me a heel, my hands will whine from a heavy clutch instead of a backpack on my shoulders, and I’ll never tell anyone that they have skinned jeans after lunch and hid behind a shirt. Well, except for you.
Moscow
Lena Vanina, Scriptwriter, Journalist, 31 years old
I loved heels, loved skirts and dresses, loved outfits, for which you need to lay an extra two hours before going out to be a hundred. But then, on my birthday, I broke my leg. A doctor in a deserted gray emergency room said that everything is very bad. But maybe, if you're lucky, I will walk in a year and a half. After three months, another doctor told me that I would naturally walk. But about the heels will have to forget. How long? How lucky - maybe forever. So I lived for 2 years. I used to love sports pants, sneakers, skirts that can be worn with sneakers. And dresses that are not obligated to anything. This time I put on my high heel shoes for the first time.
- Do you know that your eyes are like the sea? - Asks me a taxi driver.
Taxi drivers in general often ask for something like that.
- No, - I say, - I just have made up eyes. They are not like the sea. They are ordinary.
- Oh, no, girl. You think she fooled me. Cosmetics nobody needs. Men, girl, still see the soul. And I saw yours. Beauty orphan.
For three minutes we talk to him about the fact that when you don’t have cosmetics on you, male drivers are less likely to talk about the soul. True, it is. A little less. Or, more precisely, never. I go to the restaurant in heels.
- Sorry, I did not reserve a table. I understand you have few empty seats. But maybe…
“What are you, what are you,” the hostess smiles, looking at my outfit, “we'll find something for you somehow.”
A couple of times when I came here in my sweat pants and ordered wine, the waiters carefully asked if I had a passport with me. "I am 30 years old, you are what." - "You forgive, we all understand, but such rules."
- Do you have a birthday? - the colleague asks me.
- Why? - I order wine.
- Well, you're not just like that ... uh ...
- What?
- Well, dressed.
For ten minutes we are discussing why Moscow is most often dressed the way I do today. We agree on the fact that I still go more sports pants.
Most of all, in fact, my dad was delighted. I came to visit him in the evening. Skirt, heels, makeup. How many years he tried to convince me that my charming orphan chic love only in Paris. And even then, not always.
- What happened?
- Nothing, dad. She just made up her eyes.
- Well, tell me.
Then, of course, I listened to a lecture that the skirt is not just a skirt. And the heel is almost your soul.
I was driving home in the car. The driver again squinted in the rearview mirror. I watched and watched. And then suddenly he said: "Oh, woman. Well, and my eyes. Look - where? In the very soul." And then again about the smile of God and the power of the moment.
Tomorrow, I guess, I look like in sweatpants.
