Someone once told me that if you’re under five foot four you should “steer well clear” of any boots above mid calf, because they’ll “cut the leg in half and make you look like a garden gnome.” I’m quoting this directly because I wrote it down at the time on the back of a receipt because I was convinced someone had just explained to me a rule of styling that would be invaluable for the rest of my life. I bought into that notion for nearly ten years. I’m five foot two. I currently own eleven pairs of knee high boots, and not one of them has made me look like a garden gnome, so that “rule” was either stupid or I’ve been extraordinarily lucky with boots since 1994 and I don’t believe in luck lasting for thirty years.
What no one bothered to explain to me at the time and still neglects to when doling out this “advice” is that having your leg “cut in half” is less about height and more about two entirely separate things that have nothing to do with where you measure on a chart. Get those two things wrong? Sure, put a short girl in knee high boots and chances are she’ll look chopped up and stumpy.
Get them right? Knee-high boots are better on a short leg than they are on most long ones, because a long leg can get away with poor proportion due to sheer volume while a short leg can’t, which means the short girl actually has to think about proportions rather than just throwing boots on and hoping.
Where the boot ends. Versus where your hemline starts.
Takes priority over everything else and yet nobody talks about it by name. Knee-high doesn’t matter, boots “cutting in half” happens when the top of your boot and the bottom of whatever you’re wearing don’t meet up, leaving a gap of bare leg in the middle. That gap creates a horizontal line right at the centre of your leg and when you’ve got limited leg length to begin with, that halving suddenly looks much bigger than it is. Close it up though, either by boot meeting hem without break or something skimming across the top of the boot with barely an inch showing, and that whole argument about cutting abruptly ends. Because your eye no longer sees two separate lines stacked on top of eachother, it simply follows the seam from hip right down to the floor.
I used to constantly wear knee-high boots with hemlines hitting about four inches above the top of the boot (see where I’m going with this?) because at the time I genuinely thought that showing “some leg” was more flattering because every goddamn magazine told me that for about fifteen years straight. Showing leg isn’t flattering up on a 5’2 frame when you’re pairing it with knee-high boots, it’s the opposite of flattering. It’s what makes short legs look short. Took me for-fucking-ever to realize something so simple, and that simple fix is this;ANYTHINGthat hits the ground where the boot begins, or grazes past it so close that there’s no obvious break between the two. No more gap, no more arguments. Suddenly your boots aren’t chopping your leg at the calf, they’re extending the line of your skirt or dress straight down to the ground and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what knee high boots are for. That’s why I will argue at anyone who tells any woman under five foot seven that they shouldn’t wear them.
Skinny jeans into the boots are the reason no one said that for the years they were saying it about everything else, because they automatically fix the problem. Which is also why a full length coat worn over knee-high boots looks disproportionately flattering on a short frame specifically; you’ve eliminated the break altogether and what’s left simply reads as one long vertical line from shoulder to floor. My sister started doing it when she was 16, is a full three inches shorter than me, and has never asked nor sought my opinion on her outfit choices once in her life. But she knew that shit years before I did and was, infuriatingly, correct about it the entire time I was writing down strangers’ shoe advice on grocery store receipts.
The boot itself, not the height of the wearer.
This has less to do with what you wear with boots and everything to do with the boots themselves, which is what most people try to throw in my face when I explain the above, but will ruin your knee-high experience just as fast whether you’re pairing them with jeans, skirts or underwear. Knee-high boots that don’t fit your calf will cut your leg line up regardless of what you’re wearing them with and they’re a lot more likely to NOT fit your calf if you’re shorter because knee-high boots are mostly designed with a certain calf-to-shin ratio that doesn’t take smaller legs into consideration. Too much shaft room and your boot either bunches up on you or hangs too low, creating that horizontal line we’re trying to avoid directly at the smallest part of your leg. It’s not about height. It’s about how the boots are made and the simple fix of always trying boots on while sitting down like you might actually buy them, which I didn’t do for the longest time because I hate spending time in clothes shops and then had to stand at the bus stop kicking myself when I realised my new boots had slid down to pool prettily at my ankle because I wasn’t standing up straight.
Oh, heel height makes more of a difference here than most people think too. I spent years in super flat knee-high boots because, well…I’m short? They looked heavy on my ankle and made my whole leg look heavy in comparison, but even a small heel on a boot will fix that dropped appearance instantly because it lifts your whole leg line up, stopping the boot from looking like a solid block of leather from ankle to knee. It took me until I was twenty-seven to realize I didn’t just naturally suck at proportion, I was wearing the wrong heel.
Toe shape is more important than people realize as well. Round or squarish toes shorten your foot visually which, again, makes your leg look stubbier by comparison. Anything even slightly pointed almond or beyond will have the opposite effect and instantly lengthen your look from head to toe without you changing anything else about your outfit. I will no longer wear boots with round toes because they make my already short legs look stupid, and yet I still have a pair from 2004, just to mock me.
They’re square toe, flat as fuck and barely mid-calf, much less knee high. Keep them as a reminder of each and every mistake I listed above. All of them. So no, it never was about height, because it’s been about poorly fitted boots ruining small outfits since long before I started trying to wear them. It still is. Period. Full stop. Try telling that to the lady at Naked who thinks she can sell boots by handing me a receipt and telling me I’m too short for shit.
