Taxi shoes, dinner shoes or taxi heels are phrases that refer to shoes that you wear to go out to dinner or while being driven around in a taxi.
But of course eating and travelling do not require special footwear, so this definition doesn’t really tell the full story!
A better definition of dinner shoes or taxi shoes is that these are beautiful high heeled shoes that are you wear in public when you are not doing a lot of walking or standing. Such shoes are usually very impressive to look at, often glamorous and with very high heels, and should turn heads wherever they go.
These shoes might also be referred to as “red carpet shoes” amongst celebrities.
Heels such as Christian Louboutin’s 5 inch So Kate pump would be a classic example of a taxi shoe or red carpet shoe. They’re expensive, eye-catching and manageable enough to get from the limo to the red carpet and then the theatre. But most women wouldn’t want to stand around in them all night at a cocktail party.
While there is no “official” heel height that qualifies stilettos as dinner shoes or taxi heels, generally these are somewhere between a classic daily heel and the very highest stilettos on the market.
What is important is that taxi heels are not meant to be impossible to walk in – the point is that they are possible to walk very gracefully in, just not for very long.
As for the type of shoe that qualifies, a wide range of heels can be considered taxi shoes. The style of shoe is not really important although these shoes are not meant to be the kind of sky-high heel that would never leave the house. Dinner shoes and the like are meant for public display – just that the standing up part is for a limited time only.
In modern times we could add the phrases “ride share heels” or “Uber shoes” to the definitions of “taxi shoes”, “dinner shoes” and “taxi heels”. But they all mean the same thing: step out, smile… and sit down quick!