When I showed my friend the dress I was going to wear for the Glitterball (a floor length beige dress covered in rainbow sequins that I bought from a charity shop for £15 for the Year 13 prom that never happened), he said it was gorgeous. His first question, naturally, was: ‘What shoes are you going to wear with it?’. I pointed down at my feet and mumbled something about how I thought I’d just wear these: my clunky platform Chelsea boot docs that I drag along with me in my day-to-day life. His response? ‘Ciara… as your friend, I am not going to let you wear that dress with those shoes.’ I was taken aback. The Glitterball dress code was to wear formal clothes but that feeling ‘most comfortable’ overrides this. My docs couldn’t be more comfortable – so, surely that would be ok?
I have a real problem with heels. I can count the number of times I’ve worn them on one hand and the last time was a Winter Ball in sixth form. I refuse. I say it’s out of principle when asked: heels are designed to alter a woman’s posture; they make it more difficult to run away in danger; they’re meant to make our legs look longer and make us look taller and so more desirable to the male gaze. All of this is true, of course, but it doesn’t change the fact that, if I’m being really honest, I really love the way they look and wish I could just chant ‘beauty is pain’ and get through it. And what I find even more exciting about heels, as with most queer fashion, is they are no longer limited to female-identifying people by any means, and so reclaiming heels as something just simply pretty to look at becomes a whole lot easier because so many people have recently shown how all-inclusive they can be. Not that Elton John and Prince didn’t already make wearing heels so effortlessly cool. I still don’t understand how they, or anyone else, danced in them, though.
So, my reason for not wearing heels (I had to protest this issue to other friends, too) didn’t really stand up. Especially when I got my mum to bring me a selection of her heels from home to try on. My mum, who probably has a decade-spanning record-breaking shoe collection, responded to my message asking this favour with ‘I like a challenge’ and a selection of shoe emojis. I think I made her day. I subsequently spent a whole day in a pair of beautiful silver boots, with the teeniest tiniest heel you’ve ever seen, and I’ve never received more compliments on a pair of shoes, while my toes felt pinched and I toppled a little bit at every step.
The point is: what made the Glitterball so exciting to me was that it wasn’t a stuffy, binary formal attire gig. It wasn’t black tuxedos and patent brogues, ball gowns and staggering shoes and mini bags that literally cannot fit more than a tissue inside (what actually is the point of these?). I am lucky to feel very easily accepted by the external world in my gender expression and in what I wear, but for many people this is not the case because, well, people are very quick to judge, and non-binary conceptions of gender and style are still relatively ‘controversial’, for want of a better word. I really loved that, at Glitterball, you could wear pretty much anything and you wouldn’t have stood out. And there was glitter. Everywhere.
A college ball must be so intimidating to those who feel that a pre-requisite to attendance is to choose the ‘male’ or ‘female’ manifestation of black tie and perfect it. There is really no need for this stress, whatever traditions we’re trying to maintain. Why shouldn’t we wear whatever we want?
I wore my docs. Of course I wore my docs. And, actually, so did half of the people there. Who knew I was being such a queer stereotype? I wore my docs and danced the night away to Sisters of Funk (who are unbearably cool and could form the basis of an article themselves); I danced the night away to the ABBA tribute band; I even danced the night away in Plush, in my docs and my full-length dress (dress: I’m so sorry for putting you through this horrifying experience). I also left the charity shop tag in my dress the whole night – not knowingly, but anything goes at Glitterball, right?
Image: Madi Hopper
