Your Ugliest Paysite Creation Find: Round Two.

[CatOfWar]

Stiletto heels have a use; weapons in case your date turns out to be of the freakish variety.

I suppose the incredibly pointy toes on those things also have defensive uses.

HugeLunatic: How do you manage to wear flip flops without getting chafed where the toe strap goes?  Or does the skin just toughen up there once you've worn them long enough?  They always chafed me when I wore them as a kid.  That may have been because I had the cheap plastic and foam variety.

I was going to look for some hideous shoes on T$R in an effort to be sort of on-topic, but their site is being beyond slow, so have some Venetian Renaissance shoes instead.  I read somewhere that doctors told women not to wear these things because they kept tripping, falling, and having miscarriages, but the Renfashionistas refused to listen.

Paleo, shoes or not shoes?  Click the image for the full article.

[Paleoanth]

The thing on the left looks like a baculum.

[rum nate]

HugeLunatic: How do you manage to wear flip flops without getting chafed where the toe strap goes?  Or does the skin just toughen up there once you've worn them long enough?  They always chafed me when I wore them as a kid.  That may have been because I had the cheap plastic and foam variety.

That could be, the cheap plastic and foam ones may cause chafing. I have a pri of flip flops that the toe strap is like cotton on the underside where my foot is and the top is leather, and I have no problems with them.

Sorry for jumping in on that, just wanted to add my two cents.

[HugeLunatic]

Those don't look like shoes!    They look like...primitive devices for women for um...yea.

But anyway!  flip flops.  No chafing, but I buy nice ones.  No cheap plastic ones, mine are all web or leather.

[Darqstar]

I pretty much only wear Saucony sneakers.   Crocs scare me, because they're ugly and people who love them act as if they've joined a cult.  They go on and on and on and on about how great they are.  I tried them on once and walked around the store for a few minutes, and my feet didn't instantly orgasm like my Croc lovin' friends made me think they would.  They didn't even feel as good as a new pair of Saucony's. 

[pinkyfriend]

Anything I can just slip on is do-able, but if I had my druthers I would go barefoot when it's warm & my comfy house slippers when it is cold.
I have been guilty of wearing my flannel pj's & my house slippers to the local Casey's a few times 

[Immortelle]

In Australia what you call 'flip flops' we call Thongs, and I practically live in them during the summer.  I have heeled ones, platforms, you name it.  You do get a little rubbing, and the odd blisters at the start of the season, but the skin toughens up and the thongs straps generally  soften.  My last pair of thongs my dog chewed to bits, so I think I may need to invest in a new pair next season

Around the house I'm big on big fluffy/furry slippers.  My last pair were hot pink.  This year I have a pair of white shaggy furry boots with pom poms.  I have a white dressing gown that I tend to wander around the house in too.  Tis a good look.

[calalily]

Yes, I love my high heeled thongs - I have two pairs I've worn to death.  Nice thick platforms so I can be slightly taller without the concern and pain of heels.  I stop the chafing on the straps by using a thick cream to moisturise my feet - a little like a barrier cream - so that my feet slide in the straps if necessary, rather than rubbing or chafing.

I like my Doc Martens and I have at least 20 pairs of flat strappy sandals.  I have big feet, wide feet (although I do believe they are absolutely beautiful so I'm fine with the supersize) so I have limited options on what I can wear.

[neriana]

"Renaissance" corsets and Victorian steel and whalebone corsets were two different things. The Victorian corsets did cause health problems, laced as tightly as they were back then, but since it was extremely fashionable to be unhealthy in those days, that didn't stop women from wearing them. There was a drop in fertility among the English and American middle class from the 1850s to the 1870s, and the most convincing paper I've read on the subject points directly at the corset as the reason for it. I was able to find it pretty quickly: "tightlacing was practiced to the extent that it significantly impacted the marriage fertility rate of the middle classes through extensive distortion of the female physical form which in turn affected conception, coital frequency, and survival of the foetus." From "Corsets and Conception: Fashion and Demographic Trends in the Nineteenth Century" by Mel Davies, published in 1982 in Comparative Studies in Society and History. Further, the women who did NOT wear corsets were considered loose, immoral, sexual, etc. Doctors and feminists crusaded against them because their negative effects on the female body were painfully real. They squashed one's internal organs and displaced them.

Women in China started binding their feet just before the Chinese empire was conquered by the Mongols. I've only had a bit of East Asian history, but the hypothesis that this was not a coincidence is bandied about quite often. Women couldn't do farmwork any more, men had to do all of it instead of training for the army = epic fail.

Discomfort for fashion is stupid. The more "fashionable" you look today, the dumber people will think you looked in the future.

[Pescado]

And we all know the devil be a man (in my mind he probably looks a bit like Pescado or the other way around).

Have you ever considered that the equivalence relation may run deeper than that?

[Paden]

Pes, don't deny it, we have a good idea that you're Satan.

[Souvenirs]

I have a weird aversion to any heels higher than an inch or so.  They make people's feet look mutated to me, and it freaks me out.   Unsurprisingly, all of my shoes are completely flat.

Those Renaissance shoes are ridiculous.  What is it that people have against women walking?  I don't recall any fashion trends for men throughout history that rendered them incapable of going about their everyday lives.  And don't even get me started on corsets or foot binding (shudder).

[Scurvy Cat]

The metal ones like the 16th century cage monster shown here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/History_of_corsets were probably orthopedic devices.  I'm reading a book on the clothing of Eleanor of Toledo--Moda a Firenze 1540-1580: Lo stile di Eleonora di Toledo e la sua influenza (Italian Edition--luckily it has a parallel text in English) and apparently there's a listing for a metal corset like that one being purchased for her.  But they mention two things, that it would have been covered in brocade, and that it was ordered only after she became ill with consumption or some other pulmonary disease.  Since her previous stiffened bodices used felt and cardboard and there's no mention of even stays being bought or made up, they think it was because she wanted to be able to stand erect for official functions. 

And, yep, Victorian and rennaisance corsets are doing two different things. Victorian ones are reshaping the body, rennaisance ones are essentially making a smooth line for the clothes. 

And I don't do high heels, either.  I have no desire to sprain an ankle or have my extraordinarily high arches go into spasms and flatten, which is what they do if I walk in anything but trainers or my Dr. Scholls work shoes.

[Emma]

Pes, don't deny it, we have a good idea that you're Satan.

He is either Satan or Santa, one or the other.

[Eskimo Pie]

 I do love my crocs. I use to work in a wear-house were I had to wear steel toe boots for 8 - 10 hours a day so at the end of the day  putting on my crocs was a foot orgasm!  From wearing steal toes for so many years I have foot issues so now I go for comfort before fashion and there is no heels in my closet anymore!