A letter from a reader

At 67, I was wrong about having worn my last pair of heels

Some decisions get made without a meeting. Nobody announces them. One day you simply notice the heels have moved to the back of the wardrobe and the flats have won, and you file it under getting older and put the kettle on.

Mine happened years ago. So imagine my surprise at my daughter’s birthday dinner, when two of her friends, thirty years younger than me, leaned across the pudding to ask a question I had stopped expecting.

Sorry, but where are your boots from? They are gorgeous.

I looked down at my own feet almost to check. Because the boots they were pointing at had heels. And I was the one wearing them, comfortably, three hours into a birthday dinner.

How it happens

Here is how heels leave a woman’s life. Not in one decision, but pavement by pavement.

The heels in the shops are pencils. Lovely on the shelf, lethal on cobbles, worse on the bus. Each year they cost a little more nerve, until one day the flats go on and the heels quietly retire, and a little bit of height and posture and occasion retires with them.

And we tell ourselves that is that. Heels are for the young, the chauffeured, and women who have never had to run for anything.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought I had given up heels. I had actually given up THIN heels, and nobody had offered me the other kind.

A low, wide block heel is a different animal altogether. It lands flat, the whole heel at once, so there is no wobble to manage and no concentration required. You get the height back, the posture back, the click on the floor back, without walking like you are crossing ice.

Two inches, it turns out, was never the problem. The pencil was the problem.

Mine are the Norah

They are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now.

They are called the Norah, in a deep chocolate brown with a soft brushed finish. The toe is squared with a neat little cap seam across the front, which sounds like nothing and is exactly the detail people notice. The shaft is soft and gathers gently at the ankle, so trousers sit over it neatly and nothing digs.

And there is nothing to operate. No side zip, no laces, no buckles. They pull straight on, the inside is cushioned, and the sole has a proper grip on it, which anyone who has met a wet British pavement in October will appreciate.

What happened at the birthday dinner

I wore them with tights and my good midi skirt, and by the main course I had forgotten about them entirely, which is the highest compliment I can pay a heel.

Then came the question from my daughter’s friends, and a small interrogation about where they were from, and my daughter telling the table that her mother was now the stylish one of the family. I let that stand.

Three things I have learned since

One. The block lands flat. Every step, the whole heel at once. I stopped thinking about my feet within the first hundred yards, and I have not started again.

Two. They go with everything. Trousers over the soft shaft, dresses and tights when there is an occasion. One brown boot, the whole autumn wardrobe covered.

Three. Nothing to operate. They pull on while I am holding the door keys in one hand and the dog lead in my teeth. No zips, no laces, no negotiation.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me hesitate.

The Norah is £39.95 at the moment. It was £80.00.

I have paid more than that for flats I resented. For the pair that put heels back into my life after years of believing they were done, it is the best-value thing I have bought this year.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “First heels in years I forgot I was wearing.” That was the one that decided it for me.

They are part of a whole collection of heels and boots, dozens of styles, and I have already been back to look at the leopard ones. At my age. Imagine.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

Think about when you last wore a heel, and whether you actually chose to stop or just drifted. If it was the wobble that retired you, it was never the height. Try a block. It is the same woman, standing an inch and a half taller, minus the fear.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the first autumn stock is already going, so the popular styles and middle sizes disappear first. The collection runs from a UK 3 to an 8.5.

I had not worn my last pair of heels. I had worn my last thin ones.

Maggie