Ridiculously Pointy-Toed Boots: So Hot in Mexico Right Now

It started with one man walking into a cobbler’s shop in northeastern Mexico (as so many stories do). He asked for custom-made boots with curled toes so long that the most flamboyant genie would have writhed with envy. Then he wore them out and danced like no one was watching. And all of a sudden crazy, pointy shoes were The Next Big Thing.

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The AP reports that the trend-setter went by the name of “Cesar of Huizache,” the latter being the name of a village near the shoe-maker’s town of Matehuala. Cesar of Huizache showed the shoemaker a photo of a long-toed cowboy boot, and the cobbler soon churned out a pair that were 35 inches long (roughly equivalent to the height of a three-year-old boy). Then the story really got started, up-in-here-style:

The mystery man … wore his new boots to Mesquit Rodeo nightclub, where he danced bandido style with a handkerchief hiding his mouth and nose. “He was dancing and having a good time and he didn’t care what people were saying about him,” said Fernando Lopez, the master of ceremonies at the rodeo-themed disco. Then he disappeared.

Soon boys and teens were flocking to the cobbler for a pair of their own. The trend spread throughout their bit of Mexico toward the U.S. and “coincided with a new dance craze of gyrating, drawer-dropping troupes dressed in matching western shirts and skinny jeans to accentuate their footwear.” There are now dance competitions, and pointy-toed troupes are hired for weddings. “The boots makes them look more sexy because you can tell they are daring,” one woman watching such a contest told the AP. As they say up here in the old States, to each his own—especially when it comes to men who rock daring footwear and the women who love them.

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