On Our Toes

Recently while riding the subway with a friend, I noticed a woman sitting across from me- a youngish Asian woman with very fair skin. My eyes traveled enviously to her feet, which were delicate, perfectly proportioned, smooth and as milky white and unblemished as her pretty face. Her feet looked like she never had so much as a blister her entire life, in spite of the fact that she wore four inch platform sandals with a multitude of very thin, black patent leather straps held together by a gold ring in the center of her foot. Her toenails were polished a glossy black, and a pedicure artist had painstakingly rendered cherry blossoms on each toenail. I pictured the person who created this artistry wearing a face mask to filter the acetone fumes and a jeweler's magnifying loupe head visor to focus on this delicate handiwork. When she got off the train, my friend commented on her 'porcelain complexion' and I said 'yeah, and did you see her toes?'

She was probably the cutest girl I had seen all day, and she definitely had the cutest feet.
In contrast to this, I remembered a woman I had seen not long before, whose giant hooves made my size tens look petite in comparison. In spite of the fact that the skin on her feet was as deeply grooved as a 3D map of Afghanistan, she sported metallic gold strappy platform sandals not dissimilar in style to the ones adorning the delicate paws of the young lady described above. Her toes would not be stifled by petty notions of straightness or order, splaying and criss crossing over one another every which way, corns bubbling up as if her feet were formed from volcanic mud. Some hearty soul had been given the odious task of painting this woman's long, serrated toenails with blinding neon orange polish, and finishing it all off with french tips embellished with tiny rhinestones. The effect was not unlike a Vegas stage production of 'Alien vs. Predator'. I could not help admire this woman's dedication to the fancy and the feminine, and could only imagine what she saw in her own mind when she looked down at her feet.
I have known people who insisted on hiding their feet, even at the beach. This quite often happens to dancers, who end up with sublimely sculpted bodies ironically ending in mangled twisted toes. Likewise, someone who has rarely gotten off the couch and resembles Jabba the Hut could very likely possess baby soft, unsullied underpinnings.
We make every attempt to change our figures with exercise and diet; our hair with dying, cutting, wigs and extensions; our faces with makeup and facials; and we can embellish and groom our feet as well. But pretty feet, like everything else, are a genetic blessing, and attractive feet, like all other physical charms, can fade considerably as we age. While not as common as facelifts and lipo, there is such a thing as a 'foot facelift'. They actually held a contest to find the woman with the ugliest feet in America (FYI, the feet shown in this video are not even as ugly as the ones I just described, just a lot more unkempt). Years of pounding the pavement in paper-thin ballet flats have damaged my own tootsies somewhat, leaving me with a common and painful condition called plantar fasciitis (fortunately this has been alieviated by better footwear choices) and slightly splayed-looking toes. Thankfully, I don't have the ugliest feet, and they are as fastidiously groomed as the rest of me, but I also don't have the prettiest. Not nearly ugly enough to hide, although I wouldn't rule out the possibility of one day covering my feet with pretty tattoos if they end up riddled with spider veins. For now, in lieu of more extreme measures, I simply choose my summer footwear with an eye to the most flattering style.
Flat sandals with minimal straps are the string bikini of footwear, you really need narrow, elegant feet with thin, perfectly straight toes and delicate ankles to wear them without looking like a duck with a weight problem. Mules (you gotta love the classic 'Polly' shoe sported by Deborah Harry on the cover of Blondie's 'Parallel Lines') can lengthen the look of stubby legs and make stick legs look shaplier (Jayne Mansfield swore by this trick). Platform wedges are the most comfortable type of high heeled shoe, but heavy platform shoes are not at their best on women with short, chunky legs (someone tell Jessica Simpson to pick another style from her awesome shoe line). The fashion press declares the flatform all the rage, but as comfortable as this style is, you need *some* front to back differentiation in height to avoid looking like Frankenstein. Some people just hate bearing their toes, for no particular reason. For these folks, Balenciaga trotted out shoes for spring that look like high end versions of the creepers we used to wear as teenage punk rockers. My favorites are the Dolce & Gabanna  - I'm in absolute love with the entire Spring 2011 collection.
Sometimes the feet don't age along with the rest of the body. I've seen older women with man faces who still have feminine, pretty feet (I wonder what Marianne Faithful's feet look like - maybe she still has angel toes, unchanged since 1969?). There's no doubt the feet are an errogenous zone, and foot-beautifying measures can have a similar effect on a lady's self-esteem as a push up bra. After meeting a friend's mom for the first time, I commented on her cute polka-dotted pedicure and she proudly told me "I just had my toes straightened and I'm showing them off." I love seeing a person whose ONLY attractive feature is their feet, somehow it speaks of a merciful universe that decided not to pass over this poor troll completely when they doled out superficial charms. And this brings me to the important thing. Of course your feet are at their most beautiful when they feel good, whether you wear a size 6 or 11, when your toes are curling in pleasure or wiggling in the sand of a tropical beach. When someone loves you enough to hold your foot in their hand and kiss it like a baby's - how much more beautiful can you feel?