If you either live in a hot climate, or in a climate like much of the US, UK and Europe where we look forward to a few months (or few days!) hot weather every year, the hot weather poses some challenges to your height addition. There is no doubt about this. If you do not live in a hot climate all the time, you have to think about compromise on height addition just a little bit more than usual, especially during the day. Here are a few thoughts from someone who has added height for 17 summers…
At night in summer, you can of course get away with your usual elevators going out, but even there, you see many guys now going out just wearing flip flops, particularly to casual things (or indeed whenever they can get away with it, so desperate are they to take advantage of the short period when it’s warm and easy). It’s not my style personally. I don’t overdress as a 30-something club organiser, but wearing flipflops and a t-shirt for a night out is not me. But loads of guys do, and I can see that if all your mates do it, you don’t want to look the odd one out. Presumably, “getting away with wearing flip flops” is the last thing you want to do in your quest for height addition. I’ll come back to this night thing later because I think it’s pretty straightforward for height addition.
But during the day it really IS a different matter and it is another of those trade off/lifestyle things that you have to think about. I have said it before – if your lifestyle leads you to want to get your shoes off as much as poss and spend hours with the sand between your toes or whatever, then adding height HAS to be at a lower level – you just cannot be on the beach or football pitch one minute and adding 4″ the next during the day. So that IS a consideration.
Drop a bit of height
What do I myself do? Well as chance has it, I am right now in a very hot country for six weeks working, endless sun and sea right at my doorstep. I work at night, being in the club business, sleep late if I can and DO go on the beach for a swim and a bit of sun. But I am not one who wants to play sport on the beach or whatever. When I am in London, where I am usually based, I almost always wear 4″ or 5″ elevators, but right now out here, during the day I wear trainers/sneakers much of the time (you can get elevator versions, plenty in the GuidoMaggi range, or add lifts up to a certain degree). Usually I am wearing trainers that give me anything from 2.5″ to (v occasionally but not often) 3.5″. If I am on the beach and relaxing of course I take my trainers off, but if I get up I always put them on as I like to have my natural height advantage as much as I can when I am stood. This is nothing odd and if having to do it is all just too much for you then do not do it! It is all a choice.
This aspect really is all about lifestyle and it seems that many cannot grasp this point that we are all different. It is not odd or sad or funny to not do what you think everyone else is doing. I am aware that I am writing to an audience of everyone from sporty teens to those who are retired (or sporty retired to teens who hate sport of course), and all in between. Every one of you has a different approach to what trade-offs you are prepared to make. By trade-offs I mean the degree to which you are prepared to (or want to, or find it easy to) accommodate your height addition with other areas of your life. Of course you might NOT be wanting to run around on the beach playing beach volleyball so you start with a plus…One of my contacts who I have advised in the past doesn’t go in the water (doesn’t enjoy it), always wears full 4″ elevator sneakers on the beach to keep his height intact. No one approach is ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ – we are all different and diverse and will all do things in a different way.
But of course if we are with a group, we like to often stay within certain norms. It seems to me that the more you want to do stuff with others in any energetic sense on the beach or in summer generally (wearing shorts and t-shirts etc) then you HAVE to be prepared to go lower, and have those options in your wardrobe. What you really do NOT want to do imho is to just drop out of height addition completely. From all that I have gathered from others (and to some degree from my own experience), you can do almost anything the same with about 2.5″ – 3″ in sneaker height addition – that is a lot actually, it is effective to others but it is totally undetectable taking off and putting on, and you can run, play beach volleyball and walk energetically in them. That level also means you can wear almost anything by way of shorts, and the trainers just do NOT show in any way like they might be adding height.
Add more for night – easy
I do suggest that for night you can add more – in fact if you are doing the 2.5″/3″ during the day then you CAN go for 4″ elevators at night in boots. These differences are small scale – counter-intuitively to what you might think, others will NOT notice. Whatever you are doing – whether a sedate dinner or a night out on the clubs and bars – I think that for going out at night (however young/old) you can push it. If you are younger and a lot of your mates ARE wearing v casual stuff to a bar, then imho just take the advantage, add your height in your usual boots and revel in it that they are in the flattest possible footwear! It doesn’t stop you dressing casual.
A reverse of this is that many of my contacts in height addition live and work in generally colder countries like Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and the cooler parts of the US and Canada, and spend their entire lives wearing 5″ elevators because all around them are in heavy workboots with thick soles. One guy I know in Estonia is already 6’4′ and adds of height because all his mates at work are very tall. It’s exactly the same with a very tall Norwegian guy I know in London. And they both comment that it is dead easy to add height when everyone around them wears such thick soled boots all the time. So there’s a lifestyle aspect ready-made – would that it were all that easy.
Enjoy the summer, stick at a slightly lower level during the day to ‘keep your hand in’, so to speak and keep your height up at night.
