I’m about to set out for drinks with a guy when I text my best friend, “Sophie Turner date tonight.” I check my outfit in the mirror one last time and start putting on my shoes when my phone buzzes with her response: “Bust out the Converse.” I giggle because I’m already lacing them up. Sophie Turner dates are when you go out with a guy who is shorter than you, and the requisite footwear is Converse, the flattest shoe. Since I’m six-foot tall, I have them a lot. The date goes well but when I kick off my high tops at the end of the night I start to resent them.
Sophie Turner—who is 5’9” and was, until recently, married to a 5’7” man—is an icon for tall girls everywhere, as are couples Zendaya and Tom Holland, and, to 30 Rock-lovers like myself, Tina Fey and Jeff Richmand. When I Google each pairing, I see a paradigm shift: the search return is full of pictures of the women standing tall next to their shorter partners, height difference made all the more stark by the women’s black-tie appropriate heels.
What would I do in their place? I would wear heels, wouldn’t I? Real, serious heels? Zendaya doesn’t wear stumpy little one inch block heels just because she’s standing next to short-king Tom Holland. And I have a feeling she doesn’t filter ecommerce sites by “heel height: <1 inch’, either.
We expect celebrities to break the norms of fashion. As a non-famous person, though, I have spent my life searching for flat solutions for dates and dressier events. I feel conflicted about it. My personal style is a deeply important form of creative expression to me, one that gives me energy and makes me feel like myself, yet when I limit my shoe choices, I’m not letting myself fulfill that full expression.
Being a tall woman means that whether you choose to or not, you’re threatening the gender norm. Look up “Male-Taller norm in mate selection” and you’ll find the studies that show that there is an exact number of inches that men prefer to be taller than their female partner. And it’s not just a “men thing”—the same principle applies to women who prefer to be shorter.
I am frequently asked if I would date a guy shorter than me: by strangers, friends, and even guys I’m actively on dates with. I often wonder what is really behind that question. Are these men intimidated by my height? Threatened? Jealous? Emasculated? And when women ask me, is it with malicious intent or misplaced concern? It starts to feel like they’re implying my height is a difficulty that makes me less desirable. Wearing heels would be the equivalent of shooting myself in the foot when it comes to dating prospects, as if there’s no man who could handle it.
Of course I can zoom out and see that in the grand scheme of, well, just about everything, this is inconsequential. Height is respected in the industry I work in, I’ve had no trouble dating, and there’s a whole host of people in my life who want me to wear heels. But then I think back to when I walked into the hotel room of the 6”2” queen Karlie Kloss, when I directed a video with her. She exclaimed, “Ah, fellow tall girl!” and gave me a hug. If a professional model thinks about her height enough to notice mine, maybe I’m not crazy for obsessing.
I was cleaning out my mom’s closet with her recently, when I spotted a pair of oxblood red Prada heels from the discard pile. Instantly, I envisioned an outfit for them; I’d wear them with a pair of oversized jeans that had felt too schlumpfy on their own for our dressy office. Along with a floral Versace shirt, the outfit finally worked. Of course the missing element was a heel.
I wore the outfit, heels and all, with some trepidation the next day. I don’t think I’d ever worn a heel to the office. In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn them at all. You know that feeling when you get a haircut and wonder if everyone’s just going to shout “you got a haircut!” all day? It felt like that. Instead, my boss understood what I was going for: “Power pumps! Chic.” We went on with our day.
If heels were just about shorter women wanting to be tall, Kendall Jenner wouldn’t have rocked up to the Met Gala carpet at 6’7” in her platform Marc Jacobs heels. No, it’s about fashion—celebrity or otherwise, single or married or otherwise. I can’t let myself go gentle into that good night of flats because I don’t want to dress to make myself more palatable to men. They’re not who I’m dressing for. They’re certainly not who these celebrities are dressing for. A real Sophie Turner date—and she’ll potentially be going on some now—would mean wearing heels and letting our difference in height be whatever it is. You’ll catch me in some more heels this fall. Zendaya, I’m coming for your throne.