GrrlScientist is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, birder and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning a BS in Microbiology (emphasis in Virology) and PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) from the University of Washington. In NYC, she was the Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History for two years, pursuing part of her "dream" research project by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. GrrlScientist and her five parrots are currently relocating to Germany, where she will continue writing her blog while also writing a book and learning German. (Meanwhile, her parrots will continue to nibble on her extensive personal library.) If you appreciate GrrlScientist's writing, you can help pay her living expenses by hiring her to "blog" your conference, speak at your club or write articles for your publication (or by clicking on the Paypal button below). If you read an essay on this blog that you especially enjoyed, please nominate it for inclusion in 
tags: shoes, Japanese shoes, social behavior, fashion psychology, streaming video
A friend sent me these images today, claiming that these are "all the fashion rage in Japan". I find that hard to believe and besides, just looking at them makes me hurt all over. Anyway, I don't want to scare you away immediately, so I have arranged these shoes so the styles evolve from less to more insane. That way, you can build up your tolerance.
Okay, these shoes are a little too much, don't you think?
And this pair of shoes makes me wonder how the wearer can walk in them without having a very good life insurance policy (or a wheel chair);
On the other hand, even though these are tall shoes, perhaps they provide a little more ankle support so the wearer isn't as likely to fall?
Triple Crown wear for horse-lovin' girls! Just in time for humans to appreciate what befell Eight Belles immediately after the Kentucky Derby last week! Do they shoot people with multiple leg fractures, too?
Hey, these sparkly shoes look like they allow the wearer to stand on her feet a little more than the tippy-toe shoe collection that you just saw -- but the sheer elevation of these makes them dangerous, don't you think? On the other hand, these are certainly fancy enough for the wearer to be buried in after she has fallen and broken her neck in four places;
Okay, this is beyond the limit! I wonder if any religious nutjobs are planning to fly an airplane into these shoes?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
I dunno... 2, 3, and 4 look like they might make a splash in the BDSM crowd, but I don't know if they would be for the top or bottom player...
Posted by: minusRusty | May 11, 2008 6:17 PM
Some of those look to me as if someone's trying to design ballet-type toe shoes for street wear. Otherwise, I can't tell if they're just designed to make it impossible for a woman to run, or immobilize her in a hospital bed with a wrenched knee/hip/back. Considering the years of training it takes for a ballerina to learn how to move in toe shoes---and the damage they do to their feet in the process---the latter is possible.
Scary thing is, some women are crazy enough to wear something like that!
Posted by: MMOToole | May 11, 2008 7:27 PM
How weird and decadent! I have always felt that the typical high-heeled shoes worn by fashionable women in America were perverse, but these just take the cake!
Posted by: Larry Ayers | May 11, 2008 7:56 PM
Notice the scratches and slight bruising on the calves of the girl in #1, she must have downgraded to that style after falling in one of the others...
Posted by: Sara | May 11, 2008 8:30 PM
survival of the fittest could mean people who are stupid about their fashion choices aren't around to populate future generations.
i don't mind. tshirts, levis, and sneakers are rarely killers , rarely paralyze. let the stupid do what they need to do as long as it doesn't affect others.
Posted by: travelgirl | May 11, 2008 8:59 PM
Bravo, travelgirl. You don't happen to live in Austin, do you?
Posted by: flywheel | May 11, 2008 10:36 PM
Those ballet shoes are popular with the fetish crowd. They are meant for other "activities" and are impossible to walk in.
Posted by: mooky | May 11, 2008 11:00 PM
"all the fashion rage in Japan"
Hogwash. I lived in Japan until recently and was there again a few weeks ago. Not only didn't I see these things, I doubt young japanese women would have the slightest interest in them.
Cell phones yes, hanging out with their friends yes, but anything that immobilizes them? No way.
Posted by: JM | May 11, 2008 11:39 PM
Ah. The Cruel Shoes. Steve Martin would be proud.
Posted by: Brian X | May 12, 2008 12:42 AM
Mooky's right -- this stuff is strictly fetish wear, no more intended to be practical than a revealing Halloween costume or a Shriner's car or a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. I wouldn't take it too seriously, and I certainly don't believe that it's "all the fashion rage".
Posted by: oscar | May 12, 2008 1:56 AM
Maybe it (the craze) has something to do with the oriental fetish for footbinding?
Posted by: Oldfart | May 12, 2008 8:07 AM
Carlos came out from the back with an ordinary shoebox. Inside the box were a hideous pair of black and white pumps. But this was no ordinary pair of hideous black and white pumps.
Both were left feet. One had a right-angle turn in it with seperate compatrments that pointed the toes in impossible directions. The other was six inches long and curved inward like a rocking chair, with a vice and razor blades to hold the foot in place.
"The Cruel Shoes"
-By Steve Martin.
Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | May 12, 2008 11:05 AM
That's right, ladies - now you too can have permanently maimed feet and walk in constant pain just like a poorly trained ballerina. Or end up with permanently shortened Achilles' tendons the way women did back in the heyday of high-heeled slippers.
Not exactly foot-binding (which the Japanese never went in for; they were more into wearing as many as 8 or 9 kimono at once), but every bit as crippling. But then, so were the ridiculous corsets in the West in the 1800s. (Having ribs surgically removed so you could get that perfect 17" waist and possibly have your uterus pop out? I don't bleeping think so!)
Oy.
Just 2 brass farthings' worth from a middle-aged crazy woman who lives in jeans and feels like she's going to fall over in heels higher than 1" :-)
Posted by: themadlolscientist | May 13, 2008 2:44 PM
these are fetish shoes and boots... not a new japanese trend. and they aren't new... you can see ballet boots in illustrations by john willie from the 1940s. They look like ballet pointe shoes because the design was intended to... (the 2nd and 3rd pair) It is understood by fetish models (some actually... others learn quickly) that they will have to work up to even being able to stand in them; and that they may possibly never be able to 'walk' in them... much like ballerinas are not known to walk en pointe just for fun... maybe down the street, or to the store. Some models were ballerinas and wrap their toes and the whole bit to walk or stand in them... definitely the exception and not the rule. The fourth pair are used for "pony play"... more fetish wear... 5 and 6 look like this style that is considered a fetish... I guess, called cyber goth... in case you wanted to know // must seem incredibly odd to anyone who hasn't seen anything like it before.
Posted by: bonde | October 18, 2008 2:07 AM