I have recently been doing a Marie Kondo tidy-up and throwaway on stuff I have hoarded at my parents’ place for 15 years+. And going through my old boots and sneakers etc, it just brought flooding back to me every stage of my journey upwards in height.
Amazing how much stuff was just still there unused for all those years. But it also reinforced how incredible the developments have been and how fortunate we are now to have great quality elevators. Nothing remotely compares to them in terms of effectiveness, comfort and being convincing.
I am in my 30s and have been adding height since my late teens. In fact, I sometimes forget that I even did it a bit before that: every now and then it comes to me “hold on, I wore these when I was 15 and I was adding socks and lifts to those biker boots even then”! All in a very amateur and chaotic way. Adding an inch here and there as an already-tall 17 year old, I was aware from all my mates that height was important.
You probably cannot imagine it that there was no such thing as good quality and fashionable elevators. You had to make do with uncomfortable and ramshackle ways of adding height.
Wonders of the World
And from clearing up and going through almost my entire history of adding height, if there is one thing I have noticed in the past decade, it is that ‘making the most of yourself’ has become even more important and easier to do with online access to all the wonders of the world that make it possible. And to me, I have to say, the great elevators now available, specially of course from GuidoMaggi, are one of those Wonders of the World.
If you are already tall, you wear it as a badge, if you are built like a tank you show off your muscle and your build. In terms of height, in fact it isn’t so important to “be tall” (everyone wants to be tall), it’s more important to feel good by making the best of where you are. And putting the effort into working out the best way of maximising what you have.
You are reading this and looking at the GuidoMaggi range so it’s a simple fact – whatever height you are, you want to be taller! If you are younger than me then you are lucky because I started adding height in the days almost 20 years ago when there simply were no elevators that looked in any way cool. You just cannot imagine this, while you are scouring through the globetrotting place names of the GuidoMaggi range. We had nothing at all – it was the early days of online buying and there was just zero.
In the “olden days” (ie in the year 2000!), almost all elevators were in small sizes, and looked dramatically jawdroppingly dreadful – they looked artificial, clunky, old fashioned and, well, just terrible. So guys like me were left with the various artfulnesses of adding shoelifts. Years of low comfort level adding between an inch or 2 inches, a wobbly bit more if trouser styles changed (I could add almost 3” with those massive flared pants of 2003 for a few years, but I had to be careful not to fall off those open-zipped Chelsea boots).
Massive change and variety
But with the massive change and variety now available comes a new and more discriminating logic, and endless possibilities, which is just great. Now you can plan and think and work on how you want to achieve your look, without being seriously limited by what was available.
And this really came to me big time while doing a Marie Kondo on my old footwear. All the steps along the way were great in their own way, but just nothing at all in comparison with where we are now. I checked out the latest Fall/Winter collection and there is more in that one group than I could ever have imagined in 2000.
In practical terms it means you can plan your journey to getting taller. Even if you are on a limited budget, be aware of what is available and strike when you can. For me, it was always going to be “to the max”, and nowadays I am wearing 6” elevators most of the time. But not always – I go as low as 4”!! For you it can be whatever you want. And in fact if you aim for the 3”/8cm area you can really have almost any type of shoe or boot you want that is totally and absolutely undetectable.
What I would have given for that just over a decade ago…
