Why the Dolly Babe debate brought up some painful memories — for me and my enormous feet
My mum told me I would never be lifted off the ground in a strong wind. This was scant consolation to a 7 year old who had already grown into “adult” shoe-sizes and hence had missed out forever on wearing THE iconic Clarks 90s style for girls — an early predecessor to the now-infamous Dolly Babe. And I know that anyone the same age as me will remember that shoe I so lusted after: the one that came with a miniature key you could insert into the sole. Why this represented the height of achievement at the time, I have no idea (apart from possibly the machiavellian influences of this advert — which is disturbing in more ways than I can say).
What I do remember, 25 years on, is the sense of utter devastation leaving Jones’s with a pair of plain, black, lace-up leather shoes, with not so much as a flower or heart motif, let alone a key to a secret world to go in the bottom. Plain, black, lace-up leather shoes have the unfortunate effect of making your feet feel both larger and heavier than they already were (gargantuan, in my mind), and so I left Jones’s with my feet soldered to the ground, strapped to two anvils, a true gravitational challenge for even the most ambitious of gale-force winds.
My feet are now a tornado-defying size 9/10 (that’s 9 on a cold day, if I’m lucky) — and yes, before you ask, that’s the same as in men’s sizes (unlike height, of course, where a woman’s 5'9" seems to be bang on 6' for a bloke). It goes without saying that buying shoes is not much fun; always setting out optimistically, I am quickly reminded by breezy, average-footed shop assistants, unforgiving leather shoe-backs and aggressive cheese-cutter straps that women’s shoes are probably just not really for me, and I leave to go and drink some consolatory wine with the chorus of “we don’t go that large madam” (working title of my autobiography) ringing in my ears.
For this reason, the single most impactful fashion event of my adult life has been the renaissance of the trainer. Trainers offer a wonderful opportunity for me: buying men’s shoes. But buying men’s shoes that don’t specifically look like men’s shoes. And, moreover — sometimes getting lucky in the sale with some faaaaancy brightly coloured designs that my male counterparts have clearly decided are not to their taste.
Of course, there is another, more ergonomic, mega -benefit to wearing trainers all the time that plays into the reason many parents were upset about the Dolly Babe (aside from the obvious lunacy of naming a shoe in 2017 in a manner so sexist that Don Draper would find hard to stomach). One frustrated Clarks-shopping mum, Jemma Moonie-Dalton summed it up:
“In the boys’ section the shoes are sturdy, comfortable and weatherproof with soles clearly designed with running and climbing in mind…In contrast, the girls’ shoes have inferior soles, are not fully covered and are not well padded at the ankle. They are not comfortable and are not suited to outdoor activities in British weather.”
If we’re honest, this status quo doesn’t end when we’re become adults; if anything it gets worse. Women are often expected to wear shoes that are deeply impractical but supposedly look great. Look at the case last year of Nicola Thorp, informed her employment rested on wearing heels above a certain height, and the deluge of other similar examples this prompted. The parents who’ve rejected Dolly Babe for their daughters on the grounds they were wholly impractical shoes have summed up the entire footwear industry’s gendered approach in their observation.
The truth is, I knew crappy, unsupported, high heeled, pointy-toed, sling-backed ankle-scrazing women’s shoes were doing me no good many years ago, but it wasn’t until I had to recover from breaking my leg and pinging the ligaments in my knee off like rubber bands that I did something about it. I remember the physio’s face when I showed her what I thought were my “sensible shoes” I could wear for my recovery. She didn’t need to add her scathing swipe that I’d be better off strapping two sheets of card to my feet. Of course, they were not sensible at all — the moment I had the opportunity to ditch my (actually very comfy) clumpy black lace-ups when I left school, and head to New Look for some disposable 15-quid pointed sling-back types like real ladies (and presumably accomplished dolly babes) wear, I’d done just that. As a result, I had spent most of my twenties squeezing my ample metatarsals into (and out of — like too much cake mix splurging out of a buckling cake tin) decidedly un-sensible footwear.
Luckily for me, my feet and all appendages attached to them, trainers seemed to be beginning their renaissance around the time of my recovery from injury; my wardrobe quickly become stocked with Nikes, much to the satisfaction of my physio. And I haven’t looked back since. I wear trainers every day I can, and sturdy flat leather boots in winter or, at a push, a fancy flat sandal in summer.
So my feet now enjoy fully-liberated status, with the odd rare exception (my wedding day, when I wore enormous, thin, ankle-threatening heels — a conscious decision based on my plans to spend most of the day eating and drinking and doing very little else and basking in the luxury of that fact). But since becoming a total trainer convert, I’ve become increasingly exasperated by the other options in shoe shops offered explicitly to women. This January, my sturdy leather boots sprang a leak, and I grudgingly (and soggily) hobbled to Oxford Street. Quite aside from the usual hunt for a vessel (for that is what they feel like, really, on me — great big, military ships) that can possibly accommodate my enormous feet in its vast hull, the styles on display — proposing to tip feet into impossible angles, prop them up on implausible pins, pipe them into pincer-sharp points — it all felt like an exercise in female foot torture. Moreover, like the lady who didn’t want her daughter to be constrained by the Dolly Babe’s physical flimsiness (quite apart from by its name), I felt a real sense that the women wearing these shoes would be somehow less able to, y’know, just, do things, than their male counterparts.
That is not a good feeling. The feeling that a long day at work could be made more arduous by walking on a heel the width of a pencil lead all day, or that running for the bus — or the fire escape? — would result in your shoes ejecting themselves from your feet? That’s not a good feeling. And maybe it’s my size 10 feet, and maybe it’s my envy of the women who can squeeze their feet into Louboutins or Dolly Babes, but I feel like we don’t need enforced podiatric inequality in addition to all the other types of inequality out there.
Looks like Mum did me a favour buying me those heavy back lace-ups from Jones’s in 1992. She grounded my footwear expectations: these two whopping great sub-limbs on the end of your legs are your most important foundations. They were kept strong, dry and comfy, and could transport me around the playground and beyond as well as the feet of the boy next to me.
And I never did once get swept away by a strong wind.
