Skank Boot Evokes Rage
I can't deal. It's fall 2009 and what they've predicted has all come true. I've seen 'em. They've officially descended upon us like the vinyl-clad seat of a dominatrix who mistakenly thinks we want our faces suffocated. They're everywhere. On the street. On public transportation. The sticky, deplorable, throbbing, bastard mass sprung from the loins of FASHION like so much Strangé perfume from Grace Jones' womb: the over-the-knee-boot.
This is old news as far as EVERYBODY showing some version of this on their runways for fall but now we're beginning to see them, not on the spindly femurs of stick people like Vogue Nippon's Anna Dello Russo who's so thin JAPANESE people want to give her a sandwich and then fly a plane sideways through the isosceles triangle of negative space between her thighs. I'm seeing this scourge on the worst canvas imaginable-regular folk. The Gucci, Louboutin, Choo, Chanel has trickled down to Charlotte Russe, Victoria's Secret and Steve Madden and yo, this is BAD NEWS.
We needed the $3k barrier to entry. NEEDED. But thanks to bootleggers and overly ambitious ladies for whom "holiday clothing" was invented, those lovely dames who think lace "goes with" sequins, confident daughters who received exactly the right amount of love from their parents and "love their job," "look good in hats" and wear hosiery in red and green, thanks to them and their SENSE OF ADVENTURE I am experiencing something I was wholly unprepared for: THIGH-HIGH BOOT MUFFIN TOP.
These disgusting shoes that happily swashbuckle up your leg to munch on your-thanks to micro winter shorts and leggings-totally visible, strangled-to-the-point-of-bulbous PUDENDA are bad for business. Unless you're a safety girl who stows Gold Circle Coin condom of champions in them, I don't understand how healthy people with eyes and reflective surfaces who still menstruate regularly and swallow after chewing food don't know this is a fucking practical joke run by the fashion industry, famous people, and anorexics who do this shit instead of crying and running in place.
There is no double-breasted boy blazer with rolled-up sleeves that makes this OK, no top long enough. Rihanna DOES look good in 'em but Rihanna is also wearing a leotard with no pants and very beautiful sunglasses made entirely of black, opaque acrylic that maybe has an earring. Rihanna has seeing-eye-people, in the name of fashion. Rihanna could carry a Sybian and pretend it's a purse. Rihanna's boots are too scared to look bad on Rihanna. Rihanna is Rihanna. She runs this town. Lady on the F train sporting these shits in their $80, stretchy-fabric, KITTEN HEEL iteration in broad daylight is NOT Rihanna. I'm starting a petition.
I'll bet those things corner like they're on rails.
color me happy there's a sofa in here for two.
Preach.
Insofar as a "sexual household" can be constructed, the most important development in 20th Century Russian history could be the…sorry, still lost in the 15 email intellectual dude-off.
Yes, thigh high boots: bad.
Cultural Studies is Cultural Studies, that's what my momma always said.
Holy SHIT! (Disappears into bubble bath.)
I have enough trouble finding boots to fit over my relatively normal-sized calves. Also, knee-pit sweat. Ew.
I will have you know that I look fucking SMOKING in hats. Lucky for you I only buy shoes at Nine West.
Dirty secret: Easy Spirit has some bitchin stuff. I have a pair of knee high boots with a low square heel and a totally square toe from a few years back that people still ask me if they're Prada. and my niece has a pair of red and silver sneakers that she tells people they're Diesel and they believe her. True belivers know: Never buy shoes above Fulton Street in New York.
Oh, but the thigh-high thing? At 54 years of age I can tell you the fad's been around about 4 times in my lifetime, and always lasts about 7 weeks. Because it makes your legs reek like pickled radish.
Waist, neck, bra-strap, and now thigh muffin tops! I've found my halloween costume!
And I'm not fat!
because i have gigantic calves (and have since i was looking for boots to wear to the motley crue and warrant show in 1989), i often look for boots at torrid? you know, the hot topic for bigger ladies?
and when i went in there the thigh-high boots were the ONLY OPTION AVAILABLE.
i tried them on for a laugh, and i looked like i was getting ready to suit up as a mushroom.
oh… my god.
NSFEyes
OWWWW. WHYYYYY. EYES. BLOOOOD. Also, I'm super embarrassed but i didn't know about Torrid. Why didn't I know about this?
Ooo, somebody found a creative use for their old dryer vent.
…………..HORRIFYING
yipe!
(@WellThen:) …PUT THE INSULATED AIR DUCT BACK IN THE ATTIC.
You lucky Thins, living blissfully unaware of the horrors Torrid tries to get us Fats to buy …
Examples:
one
two
three
Its not fair. As a Fat, I know there's shit I shouldn't be wearing. Not everyone, however, follows the rules. And for the good of humanity, they really should. Thighboots are just the beginning.
KILL IT WITH FIRRRREEEE!!!
It's only available in a size 5. That can only mean that PEOPLE (who live in Los Angeles) BOUGHT SOME!
I did not know that z cavaricci was still around!
also, the lust boot! holy wowza. an old lady really could live it that shoe!
Do not. I repeat. Do not 'click to zoom' on the pleather skinny-leg pants. I think they are using skinny-leg as a general term, not as a desciptor.
*descriptor. damn.
They are so impractical that nobody in the Midwest would dare buy (or stock?) these boots for fear of being ridiculed incessantly. Can the Midwest get any credit for this? I mean, how often could you wear these boots? Once every two weeks? And you can't wear them next year.
Also, "who's so thin JAPANESE people want to give her a sandwich and then fly a plane sideways through the isosceles triangle of negative space between her thighs" is super duper.
Oh, we'll see them, but we won't see them until they are hopelessly out of fashion in NYC. In about 5 years…
Any young lady (to say nothing of any manlady)with the gumption to wear these anywhere west of Wilmington, PA and east of Riverside, CA will have a very, very difficult time fending off the horde of deadeyed stares from the Bud Light wielding chub-zombies in oversized Football Jerseys. Yeah I'm talking to you too, Chicago.
Can't forget the mulletts.
They're already here. Blame the internet and high self-esteem.
I shalln't leave my house 'til spring.
people are sporting these in daylight? for once i am not envious of you ny dwellers. these are positively worse than uggs!
This is all a fucking joke perpetrated on us by the fashion industry, innit?
"We usually just want you to look like a whore, but because you're not a bulimic who survives on cigarettes and air, now we want you to look like a fat whore."
Bastards. I blame Mark Greif.
What did we do to deserve the good fortune of 4 Mary HK Choi posts in one afternoon?!
It's not us, it's rage. I want more bad things to come into my world so Mary HK Choi is always incensed at something.
We are all 90s X-Men characters now. (Hot for men's fashion right now — lots of garter belts and suspenders with cargo pouches all over them.)
i blame leggings. that was the gateway. it's like people think halloween slut immunity extends to every day of the year and it's bullshit. I saw this one fashiony chick wearing leggings with a tunic that bustled in the back all the way up to the crack of her ass and it's just NO. Fuck you with you winking stinkeye, you are not cute.
I officially join the ranks of those who have publicly declared their love for you.
BACK OF THE LINE, BUDDY.
Yeah, same here. You pretty much had me at "stinkeye."
Also, ca. 1980's G.I.Joe and the recent rehash. WHO'S BARONESS NOW.
I wish. I have huge, Paris Hilton sized feet and regular/pretty toned legs and my legs in boots always look like a mop rattling around in a button. Bootmakers, my feet are big because of the bones, fat (nor muscle) has nothing to do with it!
…and yes I do keep a mental database of every woman celebrity with large feet. Meg Ryan doesn't work here because she's really tall and her feet are proportional.
The alternative is to be really tall with (proportionately) tiny feet. You fall down A LOT.
Trust me.
I have long felt a similar rage towards the Uggs & leggings phenomenon, but I have since abandoned this fight in the face of incessant "comfy!" and "they're practical!" counter-arguments.
Fight the good fight, Mary.
Stupid, stupid Uggs. "Comfy!" does not have to equal "Elephant Foot!"
I have nothing to add to this missive of TRUTH except:
OMG, RIGHT?!
As a totally unfashionable male, I'd like to thank the Awl from warning me away from this total fashion faux pas.
Mary. I don't know where I've been but you are fucking fabulous.
Come to think of it, I think you had me at "Karl Lagerfeld is my spirit animal."
To paraphrase every old dirty man I have ever worked with: Thigh-high boot muffin tops don't have a face.
amirite?
Back in high school (late 70's) this black (gorgeous)guy wanted to date me. I said no because my father could be a psycho/drunk and I didn't know how he would react. He wanted me to relay to my father that upside down we all look the same.
Agreed, but I come from a different perspective…
It's becoming too difficult to properly proposition m'ladies.
The world becomes a confusing place when we all meet at the middle.
This post is so good that I read it and reread it even though I can't identify a single person mentioned in the post other than that lady on the F train. This post is so good that it is about average for Mary.
A friend who works at GQ said, "you know what I like? Those over the knee boots. The girls at my office wear them."
It was a great reminder that I SHALL NOT take fashion advice for the guy who hangs around with Vogue staffers. Opinions not based upon reality!
I'll take two packages of Odor Eaters and a parachute, please.
Over the knee boots should come with a condom and fishnets. And a sales person that runs after you and says, "Wait! Don't forget your complimentary fishnets! [pause] Oh…you're not a prostitute?"
I was at the U2 show in Dallas last night, and these boots were out in abundance. I just figured that all the swinging Texas dudes thought it would be cool to bring whores as dates. Now I know, but I'm still not sorry for the things I thought about all of them.
Wild women do wear thigh-high boots and they don't regret it.
and they probably dance to natalie cole all the while!
heh.
Jesus has a hard-on for skank boots. He's finally going to trade in his diaper cloth and sandals this year for a G-string and a pair of thigh-high vinyl boots.
Whenever I see women dressed in something as sultry as thigh-high vinyl spiked boots I always give them the friendly "wanna fuck?" look. It sort of momentarily takes me back to those Greatful Dead parking lot days when I'd be walking around and nod at some stranger as if to say, "Hey, you look cool, wanna go share this nitrous balloon with me?" I don't think it's entirely wrong to send these primitive signals to women; if they dress this provocatively they are sending a clear signal, and they shouldn't be surprised either if men touch them or follow them up the street.
thigh high boots = you know you want it baby/no means yes/she was asking for it
You're kidding, right? … please don't make me go all Jezebel on you.
You know he wants it. But before you do that you might want to restrain him in some way and pour hot wax over his body part of choice. Jeez the things some guys will do to get out of paying going dom rates.
Apart from the touching thing, he ain't entirely wrong. Spiky heels have been called "Fuck Me" pumps, etc. for years. BY US. He's just picking up the frequency.
But seriously, don't feed the troll. Remember Gawker?
Up until now I was unaware that the phrase "over-the-knee-boots" was code for thigh-highs…I feel so naive, yet dirty.
I don't think I could possibly take seriously anything a person wearing these (flashback to the picture of Sean Connery in Zardoz that was used here a few days ago…) was trying to say to me.
I'm sorry: you'd look impractical, uncomfortable and skanky. No that looking skanky is always wrong, just if you want to be taken seriously (like at the office)
I'm just sayin'…
Also, I had a pair of suede thigh-high boots (from Le Chateau!) in high school that I'm amazed to this day that my parents let me wear out of the house. (Though to my credit (and theirs), they were flats.)
Le Chateau! Holy crap, I loved that store when I was 16. Never was allowed to get the suede thigh-highs, though.
Those boots + N + 1 + Polanski =
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wGr8njEWjtI/SrfT8WXnl4I/AAAAAAAAEk8/fPGK-6Ai7Ik/s1600-h/Christine+M+.+lw+.+superhero.jpg
The Horror, the Horror.
Choi posts have totally become the "John and Kate + 8" of The Awl.
thems good boots, i use'em for trout fishing every weekend.