Mae West: Empowering Heels

“In real life, I’m very boring, so I made up the walk and the talk,” said MAE WEST.
• • British freelancer Dr. Sabina Stent, whose area of study included “Women artists, Surrealism, and unconventional females,” penned a fascinating essay on Mae’s customized double-decker footwear. This is Part 21 of 27 parts.
• • “Get the Idea, Boys? Mae West’s Shoes” • •
• • How Mae West became a work of art • •
• • Sabina Stent wrote: The following year Edward James, the British Surrealist patron, commissioned the sofa to be designed as a piece of furniture, immortalizing West even further. Lips as art, shoes as sculpture: the architecture of an icon from head to toe.
• • Sabina Stent wrote: Shoes determine how a wearer moves, how she carries herself, her attitude, and even how she is perceived. There is an argument both for them as empowering, and against them as inhibiting. Shoes will restrict the wearer if too high, or if the heel is stiletto thin.

• • Sabina Stent wrote: More of a platform, Mae West’s Pepine heels feed into the characters she plays, which are all, virtually, iterations of West.
• • Did Mae West’s feet ever hurt? • • . . .  
• • This long essay by Sabina Stent will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Majuscule, Issue 2; posted in December 2019.
• • On Monday, 16 January 1950 • •
• • Newsweek readers who opened their issue dated 16 January 1950 [Vol. XXXV, No. 3] saw this article on page 46: "The Return of Mae West."
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Mae West — the femme fatale of the Bowery, bowling her leading men over one by one with her classical interpretation of a story-book strumpet.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West was asked: "What do you require of a leading man?"
• • Mae West said: "Experience. Then I try to make them fall for me. It usually improves their acting."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A British film historian mentioned Mae West.
• • "Films that make you feel good" • •
• • Geoffrey Macnab writes: Historically, the best feel-good movies have often been made at the darkest times. The early 1930s in Hollywood, the height of the Depression, were known as a "golden age of turbulence." It was in this period that the brashest Mae West comedies, the liveliest musicals and the most explosive gangster movies were made. ...
• • Source: The London Independent [UK]; posted on Friday, 16 January 2009
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • •
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — —
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 15th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fifteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,300 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,389th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • platform heels worn by Mae West • •
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