The wonderful world of shoes

Patrice, look at my feet," said Maggie, a typical foot-obsessed Pisces and co-worker of mine. She was wearing black pointy-toe heels that had obviously been giving her trouble, because when she came into the office her stride resembled a hobble, more than a walk. As she pulled her foot out of her shoe, a swelled pink foot was revealed, adorned with Band-Aids. She wore those shoes all day around campus, because she had a presentation to give. The first thing I said was, "You should have taken an extra pair of shoes."\nLadies, we must admit shoes have given us trouble since day one. From the bound "lily foot" of the Chinese girl to the stilettos of today, shoes have never really been our friend. Shoes are like the really good-looking friend who uses you, but we keep her around because she attracts all the guys. They hurt you, make you walk funny, but one compliment about how cute our shoes are and how sexy we look in them, and the pain is immediately erased from our minds. At first, I thought only women had problems with shoes, but then my boyfriend went out and bought a pair of Kenneth Cole shoes. At first they were comfortable, but then he began to walk funny and complained that his feet hurt.\nThen, I realized we both share the problem of having wide feet. So, I started to think is it my wide feet that make my strappy Aerosols hurt so bad, or are shoes more for fashion than function? I started doing a little bit of research and I found that shoes were created to serve both purposes, but there are some shoes that serve one purpose better than others.\nAs I read "History of Shoe Fashion," I found that ever since man has concerned himself with fashion, he has also concerned himself with adding height to his stature. I found the Greeks gave added height to the chief actors in drama to give them more importance on stage, and emperors in China emphasized their power with shoes that had deeply layered soles. It still didn't give any indication of why Maggie was wearing heels all over campus, so I kept reading.\nThen I saw it: "These were indeed a status symbol since the tottering walk they created was impossible without the support of servants, and this by itself indicated that they were worn by the upper and wealthy classes." Then I read that the chopine, the extravagant Venetian shoe with extremely high heels described above, was the forerunner to the heel or high heel.\nAfter reading this, I began to think about Mallory Zalkin and myself at Fashion Week.\nWe both carried two pair of shoes as we waited to get into the shows. I had my Aerosols as a fashion shoe and a pair of Ralph Lauren Nolita slides to get around in. Mallory had a pair of moccasins and a really cute pair of heels she bought on vacation in some exotic place. Walking to the tents we were regular girls, but once we arrived we were royalty with the heels to match. \nThough the shoes cut into our feet like switch blades, we suffered through the pain, because that is what is expected at Fashion Week. But is it really expected on a college campus? \nI will be the first one to admit, I wear New Balances all the time, not only because they fit wide feet better, but also because gym shoes are comfortable. When one of the judges on "America's Next Top Model" told a model she needed to learn how to do everything in heels, I was appalled. I thought, "unless her bed is a runway, no she doesn't and no woman should have to." \nI realize the pressure to look good is very intense, but don't be a fool. Shoes help get us from point A to point B. If you have a presentation and you need an "A" in the class, wear heels to get you that "A," but do not wear heels to get to the classroom. Also, if a shoe feels uncomfortable when you try it on, do not buy it. There is a 100 percent chance the feeling is going to get worse the more you wear them. I found this out the hard way with a pair of Franco Sartos I just couldn't resist buying. Never get into the habit of consistently wearing uncomfortable shoes for vanity, because it will ruin your feet. While pain is a small price to pay for looking good, never being able to wear heels creates an even bigger fashion dilemma.