All Kinds of Shoes
So I was explaining to my Brit flister belle-marmotte, soon to be an emigré, the U.S. diffs between sedate pumps for work and CFM pumps which are not for work unless you are a sex worker, when I ran across this woman's shoe and fashion journal.
Ho boy, she's into shoes. She's a cosplay person. And to my surprise, her enormous tummy tattoo (a strand of large hollow stars) is actually kinda sexy peeping over her jeans.
I haven't done a fashion post in aaaaages.
Apparently the term "French heel" does not mean what I thought it meant, and now I don't know the right word for the wonderful kind of heel I used to call French. No, not a kitten heel. I'll just have to troll around until I find a pair with a caption that gives me the right name. Edit: My dear leejean told me to try "Louis heel" and sure enough, that is apparently a synonym but more specific, enough so that Google quickly led me to this great page of exactly what I meant, how cool!
I myself have not been able to wear shoes for twenty years, since the accident tore up my heel. I can only wear certain soft clogs and surfer sandals, boo hiss, and sometimes, with lots of padding, some kinds of high-top gymshoes. Boooooo. Booooo. After twenty years, I still have not given away my beautiful grape-purple suede pumps. Oh, how I loved those shoes!
What I told Belle, and feel free to argue:
Aha! First American lesson: we say there are two kinds of pumps.
One is the dignified kind you are calling court shoes, I think. Usually shown with a closed toe, in the 1940s, the open-toed pump was popular. Also open-toed wedges, which are a different type of heel.
But we also have CFM pumps. Amy Winehouse has a song about them. That's short for "come [have sexual intercourse with] me" and they are not, in fact, pumps at all, but rather "slides" or "mules." They are high-heeled and backless, with only a band across the instep; your toes are [almost] always bare. This reference is a little bit dated now, but was used from, I'd guess, the early 1950s through the 1990s. Urban Dictionary says CFM's have an ankle strap. No, they don't. That's the point: they should slide right off.
However, I find that Google Images mostly agrees with the notion of a high heel AND an ankle strap. I think they are wrong.
These are high-heeled mules, a/k/a CFMs (although these have a gimmick never seen, hosiery attached.)
These are plain old business pumps, closed-toe.
These, despite the "sling-back" heel strap, still qualify as CFMs. Note the open heel and open toe, along with the slutty height and leopard skin. Leopard skin doesn't always shriek "slut!" Some women can get away with it, even at work, especially in flats or a more modest heel. :)
The definitions are not totally rigid. This whole page of sling-back and closed-back pumps probably qualify as CFM's even though they have backs, because the style is so overwhelmingly slutty: the exaggerated heel height, the platforms, the open toes, the fabrics.
You can see the slides on this page vary from the slutty CFM styles to the modest cowboy-boot styles. I had a pair of those before I got hurt.
Ah, I once loved shoes! :)