Just say no to S&H (shorts & heels)

Olivia Cole
26 Jul 2010

I'm all in favour of shorts. I own two pairs: crushed velvet from Warehouse, very Brigitte Bardot, and a minute gold-studded cotton pair by Melissa Odabash, kind of sailor girl with a tiny restrained sprinkling of bling. I'm all in favour of heels but S&H, seen everywhere now, from summer parties to the red carpet, is a fashion combination that should never be mixed.

For me it's up there with legs and cleavage, blue and green, and leopard skin mixed with zebra.
Don't shorts belong where there are no shoes of any kind: beaches, boats, gardens, sand dunes? The most frightening kind of shorts are the floppy rolled-up variety, responsible this week for making Katie Holmes look like she'd stepped out in one of Suri Cruise's nappies.

In the first place, they are unforgiving. But even those who usually never put a fashionable foot wrong and who have great legs (Cameron Diaz, Blake Lively, Gwyneth Paltrow) are unwittingly stomping around like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman before the Rodeo Drive makeover.

Received wisdom is that it makes you on trend; to my mind, it makes me want to start humming “She gets too hungry for dinner at eight.” What's wrong with ballet shoes, flip-flops, ankle boots or simply barefoot?

It's not just my aversion — the debate is raging elsewhere. On pioneerthinking.net, says a worried wearer, “I've heard it talked about a lot like it's some horrible crime.” [Yes, because it is].

Over at Cosmo online, “blonde_barbie_lawyer”, writes “Subject: Denim shorts and heels ... slutty or not?? Please help!! I'm going out tonight and I was thinking of wearing my stripey Breton top, denim short shorts and very high red heels. Do you think I'll look like a French hooker or can I get away with it?” Comments flood in telling her to go for it. Blimey, Barbie, don't do it.

Stylist Joanne Black takes a kinder view, though concedes that it's a risky look that can be “quite dodgy”, leaving the wearer “not cool but as though you're trying to look cool”.

“It's not a look which you'd encourage everyone to try,” she adds. “Everyone's been wearing shorts and flats for years, and that's fine, and that works. This is something new but it has to look casual, not like you're trying too hard.”

The rules are apparently that the shorts must be high waisted, to make your legs look longer, and if you have to wear a heel, make it a rocky ankle shoe or boot. A casual jacket, shirt or waistcoat will lessen the tramp factor. Sienna Miller and singer Diane Birch, she says, have managed it with a rock 'n' roll, vintage twist. I'm still not convinced.