A Short Man's Guide To Higher Style

So you’re not exactly Thor-sized. But a great fit trumps vertical stature any day. Let GQ show you how to dress if you’re on the shorter side.

- Chris Gayomali, Crissy Milazzo

MY LIFE IN LIFTS

My fiancée, bless her heart, towers over me. I’m 5’7” on Bumble (5’6” IRL), she’s a lithe 5’9” by bedtime. When she wears heels, we look like the first and last bars of a cell signal. After six years of dating, that vertical disparity isn’t something we talk about much anymore, unless a light bulb needs replacing or we see another couple on the street with similar dimensions. (“Oooh, look – it’s us but better looking!”) And then we had to plan our wedding. You see, there’s a specific aspect of the ceremony that has me inconsolable. Weddings are an exercise in self-presentation, and the thought of us standing up there at the altar, in front of genetically blessed future relatives I’ve never met (who can all probably dunk), how after the “I now pronounce you...” she would have to crouch down to kiss me like I’m some sort of grotesque frog prince? Not ideal. And so, to mitigate my inane internal crisis, I called in some shoe lifts – hidden foam inserts that would ostensibly bump me up a few Sarkozy-ian inches to make me feel regal, confident enough to perhaps cajole Muammar Gaddafi into a bilateral nuclear agreement with France.