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The Livingstone College lady seniors made that final step to graduation last Saturday in classic style wearing the latest, fanciest, most unique shoes to be found anywhere.
While at the college to photograph the 2018 graduation, I could not help but notice and be impressed with footwear of the ladies as they walked into the Alumni Stadium for the big step to graduation from college.

The ladies’ feet were adorned with all the current highest fashions in shoes. Of course, “high heels” were at the top of the list. The most popular were the stiletto heels with the six inch tall pencil thin spike. There were the pumps with tapered heels. There were lots of peep-toed heels that combine a touch of pumps and sandals with a bit of the toes showing. Some ladies preferred the wedge high heels with the solid heel and a few platform heels.

It was a parade of high fashion, culture and class. High heels make tall women taller and present the look of intelligence, authority and power. Marilyn Monroe once said, “ I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.”

In the women’s fashion world, the high heels have always been interestingly complicated and have endured for hundreds of years. At one time men of power and influence also wore high heels on their shoes and boots.

I’m sure some of the ladies’ feet must have hurt from the long walk wearing those heels from the gym to the football stadium for the service, but there were no signs of distress. The women stood tall with their lower backs slightly arched and their shoulders back. You can’t keep your balance and walk without having a certain high heel posture.

If you had a foot fetish, you would have been in paradise with all the shoes with colorful straps, buckles, shiny studs, and flower designs like a spring garden your feet.

There were white jewels on the heels, clear see-through heels, solid mirror-like reflective heels of gold, and gladiator shoes with wide straps going up the leg. Some wore those expensive classy flip flop sandals.

With the shoes came painted toenails in green, white, blue and pink. Occasionally, there was a tattoo on top of the foot or ankle of stars or a star-burst or a heart.

I hate to leave the men out, but their shoes just weren’t as classy as the ladies’.

One senior male did wear dark red shoes made of some fabric with a tassel on the front like the tassel loafers of old. Another wore shoes speckled with blue and yellow colors on a dark blue base. I have to admit it looked like my shoes when I paint a room at home with all sorts of colored paint speck droppings. One brave senior male had on sharp pointed toed leather yellow shoes.

However, the shoes were not the most important thing of the day — the Livingstone seniors walked across the stage in those shoes for their graduation from college.