Can you judge people by the shoes they wear?

[madame royale]

Is it a good thing to judge someone by the shoes they wear? Is it a logical thing to do? Do you judge people by the shoes they wear?

In English today we were given prompts and had to improvise a speech/argument, and mine was 'Can you judge people by the shoes they wear?'. I know I do and I though it would be an interesting topic for discussion.

I searched and didn't find a thread like this but sorry if there is.

 

[luckyme]

was you premise to judge their style aesthetic or if they have good taste which is completely subjective?

 

[wheneveriwakeup]

If you're speaking from a purely aesthetic view, yes, we all consciously and unconciously judge other ppls style based on what they're wearing. However, if you're judging someones character based on the shoes they're wearing, that's just silly and petty, imo. A true waste of time and energy esp. since the idea of 'good taste' is subjective. There is no wrong or right.

 

[wheneveriwakeup]

Looking back, I've met a lot of well-dressed ppl with the nicest shoes, that have had crappy personalities to go along with those nice shoes. I've also met well-dressed ppl with great, lovely personalities. Same goes for those who I personally find to have no style; good personalities and bad personalities. Pt. Is what you choose to wear is only an outward projection, it is not the end all be all of who you are as a person. We are way more complex than that.

 

[madame royale]

Well I took the question as whether you could judge someone personality wise by their shoes but taste and style also ties into personality because it could show what type of things they might like.

The shoes someone is wearing might not tell you about how the person actually is but rather how they want to project themselves and how they want others to see them. I dress to reflect myself and the things I like but others might have a little alter ego going on like David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

Shoes are usually the first thing I notice about someone but that might be because I try to avoid eye contact with people.

 

[LadyIllusion]

I don't think you can judge a person by the shoe they wear. Nice people can wear ugly shoes and ugly people do just the opposite. I judge people based on their thinking and the things that come from their mouths.
I dress according to how i feel and if i feel like wearing a pair of battered shoes, is just because that's what i feel like wearing or what i find comfortable. If you listened to me speak, you'd know that my personality is different.

 

[michyed]

You can, everyone is capable of judging. Shoes are the last thing I notice on the person though, unless they are strikingly gorgeous. But no, no judgments ever really arise when I see the shoes somebody wears (at most it's fashionable or unfashionable). Unless they're wearing crocs.

 

[madame royale]

Unless they're wearing crocs.

Of course.

 

[*Bianca*]

The shoes someone is wearing might not tell you about how the person actually is but rather how they want to project themselves and how they want others to see them.

That applies to all aspects of appearence really - not just shoes.

 

[gateau]

I think I heard that sales assistants judges whether or not people are likely to buy things from the shop based on their shoes.

Like clothing, you can probably judge simple things like if the person is messy/doesn't care about their appearance (dirty/old shoe) or fashionable (latest shoe trend) or serious (classic shoes?).

However, I doubt you can judge if their personality is good or bad.

 

[eeyore]

no. sure it tells me a bit about their style, but that's it. some of the loveliest people i know put no thought into their shoes.

 

[tigerrouge]

In English today we were given prompts and had to improvise a speech/argument, and mine was 'Can you judge people by the shoes they wear?'. I know I do and I though it would be an interesting topic for discussion.

You can't judge a person till you've walked in their shoes, not looked down at them from a distance.

Or at least, that's how I'd have rounded off my speech.

 

[michyed]

I think I heard that sales assistants judges whether or not people are likely to buy things from the shop based on their shoes.

Like clothing, you can probably judge simple things like if the person is messy/doesn't care about their appearance (dirty/old shoe) or fashionable (latest shoe trend) or serious (classic shoes?).

However, I doubt you can judge if their personality is good or bad.

I think they judge more from handbags than shoes though. Plus hangbags are usually easier to identify!

 

[hfmrok]

Shoes do reflect on the personality, but can be too narrow to base a sound judgement on a person. She may be wearing low heels/flats when a more stylish stiletto would be more in keeping because of an unseen injury. Far better to take in the overall presentation to make your first impression upon.

If you want to use shoes to judge someone (female or male), then you have to look more closely at them as to how the wearer looks after them. Are they unclean or unpolished, heels scuffed, heel tips badly worn or missing. This tells far more about the wearer's personalality than the style of shoe being worn.

 

[MissyJG]

fashionwise, absolutely. Their personality, no.

 

[rosalynn]

I agree that you can tell a lot about someone style-wise by their shoes, but there is absolutely no way you can tell what their personality is like.

 

[cloudyblue]

i have quite few rich friends, well at least their dads are millionaires, and one day he went to LV boutique with sandals, $20 thongs to be exact, and the SA did ignore him. then he picked 2 bags, 2 shoes, and paid cash, the SA was just speechless, in shame of course..

 

[Festat]

I had a geography teacher who said the shoes someone wears every day tell everything about him. He said the shoes are the only piece of visible clothing that relatively independs of the weather, the trends and everything and, so, it's the greates window of someone's personality.
I don't completely agree, but it's interesting.

 

[girlalamode]

I always look at a persons shoes first, I have no idea why. Just shoe obsessed I think...
But I don't think you can judge a person because of their footwear choices, you can like a person more though because of it.

 

[Aradia-Renee]

My wife is always laughing because any tim I see a woman I always look down to her shoes. I am kind of obsessed also as Girlalmode is.

In some ways you can and some you cannot.

I would say away from work you can tell more about a person since where I work the dress is very conservative and uniform like. I am one of the few people that does not have to wear a suit, just shirt and tie because of the type of work that I do. I wear black walking type shoes like Rockports or some such since I sprained my foot and ankle last summer. The women where I work all wear pointy to pumps and walk like they never wore heels until they were hired here. My used to have a man boss and she would were 4 inch heels every day because he like most any normal men like to see women in 4 inch heels. Well probably 3.5" measured from the side... But then he retired and she got a chick boss that is very uppity and snobby and does not like to be upstaged. Not that she was trying to upstage the woman, she was a stewerdess when it was "a status job" and well she just thinks secretaries should have a certain image as stewardesses did in the 60s and 70s until they became flight attendants. Anyway pardon my longwindedness...



I kind of think with men it is easier since there are less choices. If they are the cowboy type, or the jock, or the casual, or whatever then they tend to wear those shoes.

However on the other hand my wife will wear 5 inch platform heels to the grocery store just to get looks. She was in a Catholic girls boarding school from 13 - 22 and sort of has arrested developement as a rebelious teenager. Proper ladies over 50 don't wear heels over 5 inches, but she is, but she is an exception. In the summer everyone wears flipflops except us. Some years ago all these people wore birkenstocks...so maybe that says this is an area of spineless conformists.