by Julia Sneden

I look at the advertisements in magazines and newspaper these days, and cannot believe that shoes with spike heels and long, pointed toes have made a comeback. How absurd! How unenlightened! How absolutely cruel!

Right: A pair of high heeled shoe with 12cm stiletto heels. Xingbo at English Wikipedia

I have a friend who swears that designers of shoes must be men, who've never worn a three-inch heel or, for that matter, crammed a foot into some strappy little number that strangles feet the way a garrote strangles necks. They haven't worn shoes that jam their toes up, one against another, in an effort to fit them into the isosceles triangle that forms the so-called toe of the shoe. That triangular shape no more resembles the form of the human foot than a dunce cap echoes the shape of a human head. If you look down at your toes, you'll see that there are three long toes (which one is longest varies from person to person) and then two toes of descending size. If you were to draw the shape with a straight edge, you'd probably get something shaped rather like a shed, or lean-to, not a church steeple.

I remember reading a quote from a shoe designer who referred to the pointed shoes as "graceful," "elegant," and "making the foot appear smaller." Nonsense. How can something that elongates and defies natural shape make something appear smaller? From experience, I can state unequivocally that shoes with rounded toes make my very average size 7½ feet look positively tiny. And the pointy-toed shoes make them look like size 10's. There's nothing wrong with size 10's if they are in proportion to the rest of you, but (at 5'2") on me they'd look like clown feet.

And we've not even begun to discuss pain.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I quit work in my seventh month of pregnancy. Once home, I reverted to my childhood preference for bare feet or loafers, grateful to get out of the high heels I'd been wearing daily to the office, ever since graduating from college. Within a few days, I began to have strange pains in my heels. Thinking it was something related to pregnancy, I mentioned it to my OB.

"Oh," he said, "that's just your tendons stretching. They became shortened from wearing high heels all day." I was stunned. In just 4 years, my shoes had shortened my tendons?

Tendons, of course, are the least of it. Calluses, bunions, malformed toenails, hammer toes: the list of woes goes on and on. Women who love shoes put up with all sorts of miseries in the name of style.

My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80's, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was very proud of wearing size 5½ long after her feet had grown to 6½. While she had a pair of old oxfords for hiking and gardening, I never saw her wearing anything but high heels for shopping, visiting, teaching, church-going, and general around-the-house wear. She loved shoes so much that she would order a pair that caught her fancy from a catalogue. If they didn't fit, she would give them away unworn to a friend or the daughter of a friend, to an employee or to the churchwomen's sale. "Fit," of course, was not a precise term for her. If she loved the look of the shoe enough, she'd cram her foot into it no matter what. As a result, her podiatrist simply shakes his head as he cuts her toenails. After almost 90 years of mistreatment, her bare feet are not a pretty sight.

I find myself wondering how on earth I escaped my mother's mania for shoes. Certainly I like good-looking footwear, and when I'm dressed up, I find that pretty shoes help the overall effect. But having endured a few hours of torture at parties (those glamorous strappy numbers), I long ago decided to forego glamour for comfort. It may take longer to shop for good-looking shoes that are also comfortable, but for me, they're worth the effort. And the thought of buying shoes without trying them on (from a catalogue, for instance) is anathema.

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