For many years, women were socially accepted to wear heels, but not men. That makes some wonder, especially when considering how heels came to be—they were once deemed practical for the horse-riding population, and many of those were soldiers who happened to be men. Contrast that to how it is regarded now: sexy, feminine, and highly impractical; walking with heels as a man will most probably lead to glances of bewilderment. That doesn’t have to be the case, especially in a world that is becoming more familiar of the many gray areas of the spectrum when it comes to gender. Sure, they may no longer be that functional for many people, but everyone should be able to wear heels to be sexy, or whatever image they may want to project, right?
Francesco Russo, the Italian designer with a premium footwear brand based in Paris, thought along the same lines. As a young boy, he was a witness to how heels transformed the females in his family, and he came to be a distinguished designer of high heeled shoes some years later. He wanted to wear them for himself too, and occasionally, he actually does. The lack of comfortable, high quality and stylish options have hindered him and his friends however, from wearing them as often as they would like.
Russo took it upon himself to bring genderless shoes, and heeled ones at that, to the table. His latest capsule collection, which he entitled “A-Gender”, was made to challenge the idea that only a certain subset of the population could wear heels, that is, people who are often women and have generally smaller, narrower feet. Fashion designers are bringing more and more genderless garments, why not do the same for shoes? Thus, the A-Gender, with plays on the classic items from the label to make them appealing to more genders.
Even though the move is thought to be a bold step, Russo justifies that it isn’t by saying that the society isn’t as restricting as it once was to gender roles anymore; the brand is simply going along with the changes the world is going through. Your sex doesn’t necessarily have to dictate what you wear anymore; although we still have to go a long way in terms of acceptance, not everyone would bat an eye when other genders would choose to wear heels. And before you approach the stand with suspicion, Russo does not intend to do this for publicity in ways that other brands might. It’s just responding and keeping up with the society that is moving forward. After all, assigning gender to different sartorial pieces is outdated, and something that should be left behind for good.
Russo’s genderless shoes can push the industry, one that did not have that good a reputation when it comes to inclusiveness, forward as well. He hopes that more designers would come to welcome the change. With this, there will be more acceptable options that come with reasonable proportions, allowing not only different genders but also different foot sizes and widths to enjoy the shoes.
For now, we’d have to settle with Russo’s items, but perhaps “settle” isn’t even the right word—the creations are just gorgeous. With pairs available in European sizes 35 to 45, A-Gender is pretty inclusive in its footwear. For reference, you can check the brand’s campaign for the capsule collection where transgender and nonbinary model Oslo Grace wears them with barely anything else. Although the highlight goes to the heels, other shoes are also available for purchase: loafers, boots, pumps and laced-up shoes, and they come in different colors too. At the moment, the stock is limited, but the interest on them so far seems enough for us to hope that there will be more extended sizes to come.
Image credits: Francesco Russo, Antonia
