Last time, I talked about adding height at the first stage when you might wish to be taller. Your teens and early 20s. Well, by your mid to late 20s, you have kinda worked out your style (or will do fairly soon!), the way you live your life…and how that affects the way you add height, and the degree to which you do it or want to. What are the upsides and downsides of adding height in that mid 20s to early 40s period?

Now I fall into this category squarely, as a guy in his 30s (later rather than earlier…) – I have mentioned my own story before and it’s worth looking at this article. And although these age bands are of course not set in stone, they give a guide based upon average lifestyles. By your mid 20s you will probably have a fair idea of how your career and life is going. What interests you in and out of work. It doesn’t matter what you do or at what stage you have reached. This age is when things begin to set the pattern.

Easier to finesse

And adding height in this period is in many ways much easier to finesse than in your late teens or early 20s. Your work effectively decides to some degree how easy it is to add height, and what amount. It’s a simple fact that if you work in a very formal environment (let’s say you work in a lawyer’s office) then you have to stick usually to a suit, fairly flat shoes and conservative styles. If this is going to be what you do, then you are going to be probably most comfortable with 3” max and very traditional type shoes. You MAY be able to get away with, say, the fairly flat 4” versions of some boots.

But a lot of office work today is way more relaxed and casual – and in these situations you can often truly get away with almost anything. Begin a new job and jump straight in with your 6” boots and start the way you mean to carry on? Or begin with 4” and move up asap? Or stick to a lower level and see how you go?

The amount of jobs where workboots are the norm mean you really CAN go as high as you like. It just depends upon the actual type of work you are doing and how you feel. Same with working in shops or entertainment.

The real point, though, is that you’re building on what you have done already, earlier (in your teens and early 20s). By this stage you have already tried adding height (usually through lifts or even just stuffing socks etc into your boots!). You may even have bought some elevators. You have liked being taller and want to embed it in your lifestyle.

Adding height = expressing yourself

In many ways adding height is just another expression of your own personality – it’s as logical as changing your hairstyle, or the type of jeans you wear. It’s just that if you have stuck with it and want to carry on adding, you know you do not want anyone knowing and have at this stage of your life realised the bits that are easy and the bits that are more tricky.

Easy at this stage is that you know that you CAN get away with adding quite a bit of height – even among close friends and family. It always amazes guys that people really do NOT seem to know when they have added maximum lifts to a pair of Timberlands! Guys have told me “my friends will DEFINITELY notice if I manage to put all THAT in my boots” and are always amazed when they do not notice. I have explained this before here.If you have been adding height for a few years and have the confidence that comes with realising no one knows, it is a crucial thing to help you move forward. This really is the stage in life when you can get yourself elevator shoes and start pushing boundaries. A lot depends upon the degree to which you want to add height, how much and in what circumstances.

Work and play vary – in general you can at this stage get away with a couple of inches more when you are out and at play, specially if you work in an environment where you have to stick to fairly flat shoes. Being surprised that no one can tell you have added yet more height when you are out with colleagues or friends might encourage you to add more at work.

In general the process is incremental but your first increments (and the confidence that goes with them) have already started when you were younger. Here is a piece I did about adding height gradually and the rules are still pretty clear! – by and large you will know when you can add height confortably, and the great plus with elevator shoes like those of GuidoMaggi is that the lifts are in varying sizes and are designed in such a way that they can be easily removed. Or indeed a little more added! So you have footwear that can be slightly scaled up and down in terms of adding height. So do not be frightened off going high.

I myself went from wearing predominantly 4” to 6” boots and not a single person was aware. Yes, I added the occasional inch of extra lifts even to those 4” boots along the way, but even without doing that it would have worked. I could easily have removed an inch from the height of those 6” boots but have never ever felt the need to do it.

By this stage of your height adding life as well, the agonising over whether everyone will be able to tell, or whether you will be shamed at the airport, has usually passed and a degree of confidence and certainty has taken hold. Simply through experience.

If you are just starting at this age, though, you are going to pack a lot of experience into just the first year: I have written before about starting off and it really very much depends upon what you want to achieve and your lifestyle, all things I have written about. I suspect very few people have started from scratch adding height at, say 30 but if you do, start with something around the 3” mark and go from there. The choice is huge at that height.

Next time I will look at adding height when you are in your 40s and older.