MATEHUALA, Mexico - The customer known only as "Cesar of Huizache"
had an odd request for shoemaker Dario Calderon: He showed him a
cell-phone photo of a sequined cowboy boot with pointy toes so long,
they curled up toward the knees.He wanted a pair, but with longer toes.
"I
thought 'What's up with this dude?'" Calderon said at his shop in
Matehuala, a northeastern Mexican city of farmers and cattle ranchers
accustomed to a more stoic cowboy look. The boot in the photo measured
60 centimeters (23 inches) "but we made him a pair that were 90
centimeters (35 inches) long."
The mystery man from Huizache, a
nearby village, 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.
The next thing
Calderon knew, it seemed like everyone wanted the bizarre, half-Aladdin,
all-Vegas pointy boots, from little boys attending church ceremonies to
teenagers at the discos.
Calderon fashioned the elongated toes
from plastic foam and charged 400 pesos ($34) for the extensions. The
competition began charging 350 pesos ($30) per 15 centimeters (6 inches)
of new toe.
Disco balls Boys who couldn't afford
that used garden hoses to make their own. When one added glittery
butterflies, another made 5-foot-long toes and added multicolor glitter
stripes. When one added stars to the tips, others added flashing lights
and disco balls, strutting them on the dance floor to attract the girls,
like peacocks spreading their feathers.
"At the beginning I
didn't like them very much, but the girls wouldn't dance with you if you
weren't wearing pointy boots," said university student Pascual
Escobedo, 20, his own covered with hot pink satin and glittery stars.
Nobody
knows where Cesar's photo or the fad came from, since he was known to
cross back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. But once it hit the
sedate city of 90,000 people and auto-part and clothing factories about
18 months ago, it spread to nearby villages and showed up as far away as
Mississippi and Texas, where some DJs at rodeo-themed nightclubs say it
peaked a year ago and now has gone out of style.
"They would put
all kinds of things on them, strobe lights, belt buckles, and those red
lights that flash when you step on the shoes," said Manuel Colim, a DJ
at the Far West Corral in Dallas, Texas, where a lot of Matehualan
migrants live.
The pointy-boot fad coincided with a new dance
craze of gyrating, drawer-dropping troupes dressed in matching western
shirts and skinny jeans to accentuate their footwear.
They dance
to "tribal" music, a mixture of Pre-Columbian and African sounds mixed
with fast cumbia bass and electro-house beats. In Matehuala, all-male
teams compete in weekly danceoffs at four nightclubs that offer prizes
of $100 to $500, and often a bottle of whiskey.
The troupes
are so popular, they're hired to dance at weddings, for quinceaneras,
celebrations of the Virgin of Guadalupe, bachelorette parties and even
rosary ceremonies for the dead. One group, Los Parranderos, or The
Partiers, filmed a wedding scene for "Triunfo del Amor," or "Love's
Triumph," a prime-time soap opera on the Televisa network.
"At the
beginning there were people who would criticize us and would say, 'How
tacky that you are wearing that. I wouldn't wear them,'" said Miguel
Hernandez, 20, of Los Parranderos. "But we feel good dancing with the
pointy boots."
One recent Matehuala competition drew about 800
people, who came to watch the dancers jump from side to side, spin and
wave their arms or sensually shake their hips as their boots sparkled in
the disco light and their toe extensions bounced from side to side.
Dancing
tribal in pointy boots is "like going crazy," said Jorge Chavez, 16,
whose group, Los Aliados, or The Allies, competed for the $100 prize.
"We dance it as if we were chasing chickens. It's all about goofing
off."
'Sexy' Housewife Laura Soto, 36, who
watched the competition, convinced her husband to buy a pair of blue and
silver pointy boots decorated with stars.
"The boots makes them look more sexy because you can tell they are daring," she said.
Soto's husband, Mario Fuentes, said he gave them to his 23-year-old son.
"I
don't think I would look good in them," Fuentes, 45, said. "But I do
like to come see them because they make everything more cheerful."
But
as with every youthful fad, the pointy boots already are being replaced
by low-rise Roper style boots, which also have lower heels.
"There
are some steps where you have to cross your feet and throw yourself to
the ground and you can't do that with the pointy boots," said Francisco
Garcia, 18, of Los Primos dance crew, or The Cousins. "With the Roper
boots it's easier."
At the Mesquit Rodeo competition, the Socios,
or the Partners, took first prize for their energetic choreography.
Dozens of teenage girls screamed when one of the dancers pulled his
pants low enough to reveal a leopard print-thong.
