What's The Big Deal With Comme il Faut Tango Shoes?

I'm a guy, ok, so caring about shoes just isn't in my DNA. Like my fellow brothers, I just don't have the shoe gene that most of my female friends have. In the past 10 years the only pair of shoes I've spent more than 1 minute thinking about before buying were my Adidas soccer cleats. I spoke to my Irish lads on my soccer team to find out what their favorites were, I got online to do side-by-side comparisons of numerous cleats and I read opinions from the soccer brotherhood around the world. But that was for cleats, for competing, for going head-to-head against another team, for selecting my instruments of victory that enable me to outrun, outscore and outdefend as I kick the other teams ass. (Note: I haven't scored a goal in years and that's a sore subject, so please don't bring that up. And, truth be told, I'm 43 and most of my opponents are in their 20's, so I don't outrun many of those jackrabbits and that's kind of a sore subject, too. Well, I should also admit I don't outdefend much either. So, if you want to quibble over semantics, technically speaking, I don't outrun, outscore or outdefend, but I still kick ass playing soccer!)

But I digress.

The point I was trying to make is this: I don't care what kind of tango shoes women wear. Shoes are shoes.

Or so I thought.

The more milongas I've gone to recently, the more emails my tango friends & I send, the more I realize that women like to talk about Comme il Faut tango shoes. A lot. But you could line up a pair of soccer cleats, work shoes, & Comme il Faut's next to each other & I'd only look at the soccer cleats. I'd never even notice the Comme il Faut's.

Or so I thought.

One of my tanguera friends just told me that Jennifer Bratt (an excellent tango teacher and dancer) sells Comme il Faut's. Why should that matter? Well, um, truth be told, when I heard this I remembered taking a workshop of Jennifers last year at Cafe Cocomo & I remember thinking how great she looked in her shoes & I'm sure now they were Comme il Faut's.

And on top of that, I was at a milonga recently and a friend of mine discreetly announced she was breaking out her new Comme il Faut's for her first tanda. I didn't understand this solemn occasion. I'd already danced two tandas with her in her non-Comme il Faut's and she looked and danced great, as always. But after she put on her Comme il Faut's, I, well, uh, I have to admit she stood out even more.

So, maybe there is something to these Comme il Faut shoes. But I still love lacing up my soccer cleats. And out on the soccer field I still kick ass...no, really, I do.

Tango Shoes III

Just as a man wants to feel manly, all women desire to feel womanly. However, there are certain parts of a woman's body that is completely overlooked - her feet (you foot-fetish people, get out of your caves and evangelicize, you're too small in numbers to count)! The reason why women are women - beyond the obvious - is that they're shaped differently and thank the gods! And because we women are so different from men, we like to emphasize how much we are different - by shaving our legs so that we're not hairy apes like you. We grow our hair long so we don't look like young boys. We wear makeup, we smell like flowers and all things nice, we bat our eyelashes and wear clothes to accent our curves.

However, our feet are pretty much the same shape as you men, except smaller -and less hairier (egads! perish the thought). So? We paint our toenails, wear toe-rings and wear pretty shoes. We do NOT want our feet to ever be mistaken for manfeet. And we, as females, as women, and as young girls (in our hearts or otherwise) like to pour our personalities into our feet and mostly our shoes. It is like Goya - self expression and art put together! We want our feet adornments to be Van Gogh's, to be Monet's, da Vinci and Michaelangelo - or some women like to simplify and just wear cheetah prints.

We want our feet adored! Our pods for the past several decades have been ignored, thrown out with the stained glass windows in the days when showing our ankles was taboo. Our peds have been relegated to shameful darkened corners of boring body parts [insert sniff and wail here]. Our feet are no longer considered cool like hour-glass figures or dimples in one's cheeks. Even the word feet conjures up stinky, smelly socks, feet sweat and athlete's foot. Yeeeeuuuukkk!

Are our feet not deserving of some attention? Of course it is - we buy a million shoes to give our feet personalities, in all shapes, sizes, colours, prints, big bows, little bows, zebra prints, polka-dots, ankle straps, t-straps, S&M looking straps going in all sorts of directions. We want our feet adored just like our curves are adored, just like our lips are well loved. But men! Men have forgotten to worship our feet and so we must worship ourselves. Men, this is why women go ga-ga over shoe sales, why we tangueras always, always must pay homage to a lady's awesome shoes. Besides the fact that it's a great conversation starter, as well as a way to make a friend, we are giving each other the attention our feet deserve. Each and every one of us know what it feels like to have a forgotten body part, considered unfeminine and boring. But we women want to be feminine, cute, pretty, gorgeous, beautiful, from the very tops of our heads down to the very tips of our toes.

And when a woman compliments me on my shoes, I liken it to the way a man feels when someone compliments him on changing the tire, fixing the radiator and installing a new kitchen sink all in one day. And when a man compliments me on my shoes, well now...

He likes me, he really, really likes me :)-

Why Women Love Tango Shoes

I'm not going to pretend I can tell you why women love tango shoes. So, I figured the best way to blog about this was to ask a female friend & tanguera, Jessica, to explain it to me. She's done a great job of that below & I think for the first time I'm starting to get it. Take it away Jessica:

"The love and obsession with tango shoes by tangueras is not as simple as the common affliction of a shoe fetish among women in general.

Sure, a good tango heel is a beautiful object in its own right, and any woman wearing a sexy shoe and a high heel lengthens her leg, walks differently and can look sexy as hell.

But tango, more than any other dance, is about the feet. When we dance tango our upper bodies remain stationary, often pressed together and still. We don't use our hips like salsa. We don't gesture with our hands. As follows we usually even close our eyes. We are dancing with our feet.

As a follow, I don't choose the steps, and my main means of expressing myself with adornments and with my dance style is with my feet. As such a follow's feet are the instruments of her art.

Then there is the aesthetic aspect. So often we follows will go to a milonga in "yet another black dress" and in that case, we can distinguish ourselves with our shoes. A particularly beautiful shoe can be interesting and unique. This fabric or that shiny strap, the look as well as the feel allows us to show off our individual personalities and celebrate our distinction.

As such of course one tanguera will admire another's shoes. She'll pay respect to the other's choice and the time and care she has taken with her appearance. And we love it when a tanguero notices too."

Jessica

Why Are Women Obsessed With Tango Shoes?

There's a lot that I don't understand in this world, but over time I'm usually able to figure most things out and the rest I just find a way to live with. In tango, though, I've attempted for a year and a half to decipher that greatest question of all, that most puzzling of puzzles, that indecipherable code, that riddle known only to women. I'm talking, of course, about that wonderful mystery:

Why are women obsessed with tango shoes?!?

Well, I give up. I'm raising the white flag, I admit I have failed, I will never solve this conundrum, I'm not smarter than a 5th grader because I cannot figure it out.

Women are fascinated by not just their own tango shoes (and mine), but especially by other women's. I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting at a table with a female friend as a woman walks by. I'll look at the women's face to see if I know her and my female friend will look at the women's tango shoes (sometimes it's at her dress, but that's a different post for a different night).

I had a conversation with a friend recently at a milonga and it went something like this:
My friend: "Wow, you have really nice shoes, Mark!"
Me: "Uh, thanks?"
My friend: "Do they have a touch of purple in them?"
Me: "Umm, I don't think so--they're black."
My friend: "Do you have any other tango shoes?"
Me: "Yeah, I've got another black pair" (I'm proud to say I anticipated that she'd want to know the color, so I told her black in advance. I have no idea why the color would matter, but I was starting to sense it did)
My friend: "Were they made in Buenos Aires? "
Me: "Geez, I'm not really sure."

My friend ran out of shoe questions at this point. I'm not sure if I passed the exam. I think she was serious with those questions--she had a sincere expression like she really cared about the color of my other tango shoes. I'm very confused.

And now she's looking at me expectantly. I thought this part of the conversation was done, but now it seems like it's not closed. But why? There's a long pause and I sense that she's waiting for me to say something. But what? I feel like I'm trying to tango my way out of a huge pitch-black room that only has one small exit and I can't find my way out. Ok, think, think. She probably doesn't want to talk about the awesome news that the Patriots signed Randy Moss today. So, what else is there? She doesn't want me to ask her about her shoes, does she? No, I start laughing to myself--that can't be it. But I can't think of anything else, so I take a stab in the dark.

Me: "Umm, you have really nice shoes, too?"
My friend (her face lighting up): "Oh, no, these are really worn out...you think so?"
Me (getting the hang of it): "Do you get your shoes from Buenos Aires?"
My friend: "Mostly, every time I go there I go to the shoe district..."

She tells me more about shoe buying in Bs As, shoe color, fit, height, comfort etc. and this time it feels like we've found resolution. I have no idea what that resolution is, but, like I said, I've learned to live with things in life that I'll never understand.