How to Avoid Foot Pain in High Heel Shoes

High heel shoes, women love them! However, sometimes a woman sacrifices comfort for looks. heels makes you look pretty and sometimes even sexier than most, but what about your poor feet? Have you ever heard that old say, "My feet are barking today?"

Women like to wear high heel shoes because they make them taller or some believe it lets them show off their butts by making it stick out a little more. No matter the reason you wear heels you really need to take care of your feet. After all, your feet are what take you from point A to point B.

Many doctors in the podiatric medicine field warn that if you wear high heel shoes all of the time eventually you will suffer from some sort of foot pain. The problems a woman can suffer from wearing high-heeled shoes on a daily basis are calluses, bunions, corns, misshapen hammertoes, and horrible pain in the ball of the foot. What is so sad is women will deal with the pain just to wear that gorgeous pair of heels.

Tips on how to avoid pain when wearing high heel shoes

OK, everyone knows it is a proven fact that no one can tell a woman not to wear her high heel shoes. But, suggestions can be made in order to avoid pain in your feet. Below are some tips to avoid pain in your feet while wearing heels.

1. When shopping for high heel shoes make sure to purchase a heel that fits your foot. Do not buy a heel that makes your foot slide forward, this causes too much pressure on your toes and the ball of your foot. Look for a pair of heels that does not leave a gap at the back and that fit your foot snug but not too tight.

2. If you are going to stand for long lengths of time while wearing high-heeled shoes make sure you put some extra cushion in the shoe. There are cushion pads that are called silicone metatarsal pads that can help with absorbing the shock your feet will have to endure.

3. Instead of purchasing a thin heel try for a thicker heel. By wearing a thicker heel your weight can be distributed more evenly than on a thinner type heel. Or another idea is to rotate from high heels to a shorter heel. By doing so, can help to reduce the pain and pressure on your Achilles tendon.

4. When purchasing heels make sure you look at the slope in the shoe. If it is a straight down slope try to avoid them. A slope that has a gradual drop is easier on the foot and has less pressure on your toes. The gradual slope will also help ease the pain you may be experiencing on the ball of your foot.

5. If you are experiencing calluses or corns maybe a cute open-toed shoe would be more appropriate. If you have corns or calluses see a podiatrist to have them medically removed and avoid the shoe(s) that may be causing the problem. If you wear open-toe shoes this can help to eliminate the pressure that is causing the problems to begin with.

Heels may be what you like but be sure to follow some precautions to keep your feet healthy.

High Heel Sandals: Do’s And Don’ts

A beautiful pair of shoes completes your attire. And if it is a pair of high heel sandals you definitely should never give a second thought and team it with your Indo-Western or formal wear. But then, apart from the beauty factor high heels some with some major health related troubles which will definitely leave room for consideration. Cracked heels, swollen toes are a common problem. With all these, a major portion of the women has to compromise a lot when it comes to wearing stylish high heel shoes and stilettos. Hence, it has become an essential part of the beauty regimen of the new age woman to pamper her feet with professional pedicures. After all, sleek and stylish high heel sandals look and feel great when worn and carried nicely, however they might cause serious problems if not carried properly.

High Heel sandals are the first preferences of women when it comes to showing yourself in style. So, whether you are a corporate executive or a supermodel blazing the ramp, you can be the real show stopper at a party or a family gathering in your high heeled sandals. The demand for high heel sandal is everywhere leave aside the fashion industry. This is because apart from making you feel beautiful, it makes you look fashionable and adds a stature. It compliments your entire persona and makes you feel confident as you walk down the corridor in that exquisitely fit formal suit matched perfectly with black high heel sandals. For that flawless traditional look, choose a pair of traditional embroidered mojaris to go well with a designer saree or a gaudy lehenga choli. For day to day wear, nothing matches a pair of comfortable Indian spring shoes, flower print footwear, colorful slip ons and the latest range of colorful jute shoes with floral and other geometrical designs. So there are quite a number of ways to make your feet feel happy but at the same time it should be remembered that nothing comes without negative effects. If high heel sandals give you a wow factor, then it has its share of disadvantages too. Hence, wearing them right is the best way to avoid foot troubles in the future. Sticking to some dos and don’ts can be very helpful in the long way.

Do’s

·Maintains your balance as this is very important if you are wearing high heels.

·Walk with a straight posture with your head held high.

·Take small steps and not bigger ones. Maintaining a proper elegance is very important you are wearing high heels.

· Choose the correct type of high heel that suits you. If you are comfortable with block heels buy them. It is better for people who are a little over weight. The flatness of the heel provides more balance. For those who are slim and are confident enough to carry it of,pencil heels can be very stylish.

·While walking in high heels, do not put the pressure on the heels.

·At the time of purchasing a high heel shoe, make sure that it is a perfect fit. A loose fit shoe can give you a bad grip onthe high heel.

·While opting for a high heel sandal, make sure that the angle of feet while walking is good. If the ankles are too high incomparison to the fingers, then it will affect your walking and bent the heel in the long run.

Don’ts

·Never run in high heels. This may break the heel or bent it. At the same time, there is a chance to sprain your ankle.

·While walking or dancing do not exert too much pressure on the heels.

·Do not stamp your feet too hard on the ground while wearing high heels.

·Avoid walking on undulated road as it might damage the tip of the high heel.

What I wore this week: over-the-knee boots

I know that whingeing about the hard life of a fashion editor isn’t a good look, but it is genuinely quite hard to write about how to wear this season’s over-the-knee boots. Because – can we take this off the record? – the point about over-the-knee boots is how to wear them without looking slutty. That’s the thought that goes through my mind.

But I can’t write about that, because to do so would basically suggest that looking slutty is intrinsically bad, that to dress provocatively is a crime or a character flaw. And that would be quite wrong, and not what I mean at all. If you choose to go about your day dressed like Julia Roberts in the opening scenes of Pretty Woman, then go you, because everyone knows she looks way better then than after she’s had the dullsville Beverly Hills makeover.

You would be in esteemed company, too: at Paris fashion week, Carine Roitfeld sometimes wears over-the-knee boots with spike heels and a tight skirt at 9am, and it really, really shouldn’t work, but she looks cool and elegant and terrifying in the best possible way, which goes to prove there are no real rules.

Still. IRL, as they say, I like the neat line of over-the-knee boots, but if I’m going to wear them in the daytime, I am conscious that they give off a certain bar-stool vibe that I don’t necessarily want to be defined by. This is no different from wearing, say, a dark polo neck and trousers, and then realising it looks a bit too sober and serious, and that it needs earrings, or the sleeves pushing up to the elbow, or a heel, or something. Fashion is not about what you are allowed to wear; it’s about putting you in control of how the world sees you.

So. If we have established that I can discuss the wearability of OTK boots without being a traitor to womankind, I have some suggestions. A dress such as the one I’m wearing here looks much more modern with boots than it would with, for instance, the bare legs and courts you might have worn a couple of autumns ago. Similarly, those ultra-long coats, which can feel a bit gloomy and Sherlock, look chic over boots that meet the hem of an above-the-knee skirt. But don’t mind me: if you want to wear them with a leather mini and fishnets instead, go for it.

Wearing Super High Heels Might Be Prematurely Aging You

Nobody ever said wearing high heels was comfortable. But a new study from Stanford University found that they might make you walk like you've suddenly aged 20 years.

Researchers measured how healthy women walked while wearing shoes with different heel heights: a flat sneaker, a 1.5-inch heel, and a 3.25-inch heel. They also had each woman walk with and without a heavy vest that weighed 20% of their body weight. Researchers paid attention to how the participants' knees moved while they walked and while they stood still.

The results of the study, published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, were pretty scary for stiletto enthusiasts everywhere. When you walk in high heels, your knees are more likely to be bent when your feet hit the ground. That puts a lot of strain on your knees, and makes you walk in a similar way to older women or women who have arthritis. And it's even worse if you're overweight, since you put more pressure on your joints.

And all that strain on your knees can lead to trouble down the road. "High heel use, especially when combined with increased weight, may contribute to increased [osteoarthritis] risk in women," the study's authors wrote. So give your high heels a rest every so often; your knees will thank you later.

From Strappy to Stiletto: Sandals in Vogue Throughout the Years

The spring forecast calls for sandals, “those great and classic flatterers of women’s feet” as Vogue put it in 1933. As snowdrops and crocuses poke through the thawed earth, the bloom falls off our romance with winter’s high-heeled boots (or comfy Uggs). No shoe is as simple—or seductive—as a sandal. The barest and oldest footwear in existence, it has been worn by Roman warriors and Vargas girls alike, and run the gamut from the flat, sand-between-your-toes variety to strappy, Marmont-ready stilettos. To see how this warm-weather classic has transformed over time, here’s a look at sandals in the Vogue archives.

Featuring covers, advertisements, articles, photographs, and illustrations in their original context, the Vogue Archive offers a glimpse of Vogue’s unparalleled record of fashion, social, and cultural ideas.

Vogue.com registered users have access to a selection of editor-chosen issues from the Vogue Archive. Vogue magazine subscribers have access to a selection of 36 issues, including the very first issue of the magazine from 1892. To access the Vogue Archive, go to voguearchive.com and use the Archive Login in the upper-right-hand corner.

How to Survive High Summer in Head-to-Toe White

Photo: Tommy Ton

It’s hot. No matter where you are in the world—New York, Beijing, Florence, or somewhere in between—staying cool is probably all anyone can talk about. Tempted as we may be to wear a bikini and cutoffs every day, even the most laid-back office requires some level of decorum. Nothing fits the bill quite like a jumpsuit—it’s chic, breezy, and transitions seamlessly to after-work events. In the street-style photo above, a crisp white all-in-one was ideal for a day at the shows with simple kicks and a luxe bag. Shop the look with our picks below.

Roland Mouret jumpsuit, $2,645, Buy it now; A.L.C. bag, $495, Buy it now; Superga sneakers, $65, Buy it now

Photos: Courtesy of Kirna Zabete; Courtesy of Saks Fifth Avenue; Courtesy of Shopbop

Shoes: Pleasure and Pain review: V&A explores exquisite torture of footwear

A 19th-century ‘Lotus’ shoe. Footbinding left women’s feet 8cm (3 in) long. Photograph: V&A Museum 

 

Forget the feathered Manolo Blahniks and crystal-studded Jimmy Choos, the red-soled Louboutins and gold-platformed Vivienne Westwoods. The corner of a cabinet that most clearly tells the story of Shoes: Pleasure and Pain, a new exhibition at the V&A, contains exquisite 19th-century Chinese silk shoes for bound feet which, at just 7.6cm long, showcase what was then considered the feminine ideal. Next to them are a hulking pair of Adidas basketball boots from the late 1980s; these are closer to the foot size of a small elephant than to a human.

The fact that shoes are often not foot-shaped is at the heart of what this exhibition is about. The cultural significance of shoes is a rich topic, and as a result has become fairly well-worn territory in recently years. The challenge for the V&A is to use its unrivalled collection to bring something new to the topic. As its title suggests, Pleasure and Pain attempts to bring a fresh angle by dint of a full-frontal view of the perversity and strangeness of our relationship with shoes.

Here, “fairytale” shoes don’t necessarily feature satin or glitter. The first display takes the Cinderella story – the creation myth of the luxury shoe industry – and shows how this applies to men as well as women. The story of the Seven-League Boots from European folk tales, which allow the boy wearer to leap and run great distances at speed and so win fame and fortune, is presented next to a pair of modern football boots endorsed by David Beckham. It is a good lesson in how the transformative powers of shoes are used in marketing footwear to nine-old-boys, as well as to thirty-something women. An even-handed balance between male and female is a strength of this exhibition, as is a global perspective. (The exhibition’s curator, Helen Persson, is a specialist in Chinese textiles and dress.) Together, this broad sweep elevates the exhibition above the vacuous “window display” effect that too often characterises this kind of show.

The themes of the show are transformation, status and seduction. That these are all linked, and that sexuality is imprinted through their core like a stick of rock, is suggested by the decor: in a boudoir’s half light, areas are semi-divided by velvet curtains falling in thick crimson folds. Since one of the sponsors of the exhibition is Agent Provocateur, one assumes the suggestiveness is entirely deliberate.

While transformation is explored in kaleidoscopic versions of the Cinderella story, from football boots to the feathered sandals that Carrie Bradshaw loses in an episode of Sex and The City, status is about the myriad ways in which both men and women have always used shoes to signal power and rank. A tiny terracotta statuette of Aphrodite on loan from the British Museum, made in Greece in the first century BC, shows her wearing platform sandals. As Persson points out: “In ancient Rome and Greece, free men wore shoes and slaves didn’t. The distinction is as ancient, and as stark as that.” There are decorative men’s slippers from the Silk Road in the first century BC, and platforms to lift the wealthier merchant above the murky puddles of 16th-century Venice. The exhibition moves beyond the obvious associations of heels as a signifier of height and a luxurious lifestyle to show the humour and fun in shoe obsession: for example, the leopard-print boots made for a wealthy London woman in 1943, which circumnavigated rationing rules by being made out of her old coats.

The seduction theme is at its most striking in a pair of Christian Louboutin fetish shoes, whose high heel has been bent to be almost parallel with the sole of the foot, making them impossible to walk in. The wearer can move only by crawling. The underside of the shoes features a transparent panel through which the tender, squished soles of her feet are visible, as she crawls. (There is a fairly arresting photograph of a semi-naked woman crawling in the shoes, displayed alongside them.)

There is so much going on with shoes that fashion barely gets a look-in. The same embellishments – feathers, crystal, fur, animal skin – appear on shoes from a thousand years ago, and on this season’s collections. A pair of boots in this exhibition covered in black colobus monkey fur, made by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938, have a direct link with next-season Gucci, where new designer Alessandro Michele has made fur slippers for the autumn 2015 collection. The monkey fur may no longer be real, but the look is the same. “Shoes don’t obey the laws of fashion, because they go so much deeper,” says Persson. “We have mens’ shoes from 19th-century India and women’s Roger Vivier shoes from the 1950s which are very similar in appearance, and also very similar in what they are projecting about the wearer.”

A pair of Mary Quant boots is displayed upside down to show the daisy imprinted in the sole: the wearer would leave a trail of daisies in his or her wake. This is just one, very 1960s manifestation of another theme of the show, which is how shoes affect movement and body language. A highlight is a montage of film clips, which connect shoes and character at key moments on film. Marilyn Monroe wiggles along a station platform in Some Like It Hot, her black heels and stockings filmed from behind; in Belle de Jour, Catherine Deneuve takes prim steps in her Vivier pumps as she ascends the staircase and rings an apartment bell; Michael J Fox time-travels with his space-age white Nikes in Back to the Future 2; the camera pans from toe to head as John Travolta peacocks along the pavement in Saturday Night Fever.

There is one shoe myth that this exhibition casts doubt on, however. Persson’s personal favourite exhibit is a simple, well-worn pair of mid-height white Salvatore Ferragamo pumps, from the personal collection of Marilyn Monroe. Contrary to the urban myth, which holds that Monroe walked on one heel slightly shorter than the other to accentuate that wiggle, these are the same height.

From Murakami’s Vans to flesh-toned fishnets (yeurgh!), what’s hot and what’s not on Planet Fashion this week

 The Murakami/Vans match-up is one of the highlights of summer 2015 so far

Going up

Vans x Murakami An excellent match, if ever there was one. (The artist wears the sneakers every day, apparently.)

Mobile homes Rick Owens wants one. So do we.

Yu-Be lipbalm The best we’ve found.

HulaFit Twirl your hips on the rooftop at the Berkeley hotel next to a pool. See, glamorous exercise classes do exist.

Fake gold wristband tattoo and a fishtail plait Even if you’re watching Glasto on the telly, you’ve gotta dress the part, right?

Frilly blouses and bare feet

See Florence Welch’s stage gear for details. This is exactly what we want to wear this summer, even when not dancing around music festivals.

Jude & Sipsmith gin & tonic ice-cream Hands down the collaboration of summer 15.

Traffic cones Extractor fans are the new industrial accessory, thanks to the Loewe lookbook shot by M/M.

Flesh-coloured fishnets There’s just something a bit icky about these.

Pouts Vacant expressions are best for selfies. Follow Lily Rose Depp and endeavour to copy.

Vowels What with Flowerbx, Sbtrkt and the like, AEIO and U are so over.

High heels Even Barbie wears flats these days.

Using drinks to define your personality on Tinder All kinds of wrong.

Waiting until 2017 The anticipation for Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals (his follow-up to 2009’s A Single Man) may prove too much.

The pleasure and pain of shoes: something afoot at the V&A

One of the first things you notice on entering the V&A’s new summer exhibition Shoes: Pleasure & Pain are the ballet slippers worn by Moira Shearer in Powell and Pressburger’s film The Red Shoes. Instead of being the usual confectionery pink, Shearer’s kid and satin slippers appear to have been dipped in blood. In the Hans Christian Andersen story on which the 1948 film is loosely based, the heroine Karen is doomed to dance to her death for wanting to show off her new crimson shoes in church. Even after she hacks off her incessantly whirling feet, the bloodied stumps continue to caper. Likewise, Shearer, as Vicky Page, is danced to her death by her fidgety red slippers as a punishment for wanting both art and love, ballet and marriage. In both cases, the red shoes, which initially seemed to offer the fulfilment of female desire, turn out to be its fatal scourge.

It’s a bit like that in real life too. The fashion for wearing ballerina slippers as streetwear, which crested a couple of years ago, appeared to offer the pleasing possibility of skipping insouciantly through summer, rocking an Audrey Hepburn or Amy Winehouse vibe. But anyone who has tried wearing ballet flats all day, whether in Cannes or Camden, will know that they are not adapted to pavement living. Every single bit of grit makes itself felt through the flexible soles, so that after a couple of hours you start to resemble another of Andersen’s heroines, the Little Mermaid, whose every step cut her feet to bloody ribbons.
It is this knife-edge walk between pleasure and pain that forms the throughline of the V&A show. Taken together, the 200 pairs of shoes and boots on display comprise an inquiry into the oddly powerful place footwear occupies in our individual and collective psyche (it would be hard to imagine the museum staging an exhibition about blouses, say, or skirts). Nor is this a subject that matters only to women. Men are well represented here, as fetishists and makers (which, you can’t help thinking, sometimes amounts to the same thing), but also as wearers. So, along with Empress Eugénie’s fur bootees and a pair of crystal evening shoes from Christian Dior the colour of pink champagne, you will find Oxford brogues, Wellington boots and some six-inch-high platforms from the glam rock era that were used, according to the anonymous original owner, to “kick the shit” out of anyone who got in the way of a good night out in 1973.

Leonaide Massine and Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes (1948). Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Shoes matter, then, because they mark the place where our bodies contact the world and stories begin. One of the most striking objects in the exhibition is a single “slap-soled” shoe, a frothy arrangement of silk, satin and metal lace standing on what appears to be a permanent plinth. For a few decades in the middle of the 17th century, there was a fashion for ladies’ indoor shoes to come attached to a flat panel, which joined the bottom of the high heel to the toe. Not only did this lift the wearer above imaginary dirt and clod-hopping Puritans, it also provided a satisfying sound as the shoe made contact with the floor. Soon that flat-footed slap, which could be heard several beats before the wearer entered the room, became the mark of real lady.
This tumbling together of the material and the metaphoric is evident too in the history of the bathhouse clog. Originally designed by the Romans to keep their feet clear of other people’s soapy scum, the ancient clog travelled the known world, slimming down and picking up status as it went, much like this season’s unfeasibly fashionable “pool sandal” (Christopher Kane is doing some lovely ones for £300 a pop). In the Ottoman empire the clog came to rest as the ceremonial Qabâqib, best described as slip-on stilts. The Qabâqibs in the exhibition are nearly a foot tall, inlaid with mother of pearl, and were worn by a wealthy young woman during her wedding ceremony, which partly took place in the hammam. The effect must have been to turn the bride – naked on top of her preposterous pedestal – into a living statue.
Posing, it turns out, is what many of the shoes in this exhibition are all about. The grand parade of skyscraper heels, needle-point toes and clunky buckles is designed to make the point that useful activity, let alone manual labour, is pretty much impossible if you opt for statement footwear. The Indian princeling in possession of slippers with toes that curl and twist like smoke, and the Venetian lady tottering in her 21-inch-high chopines were sending a message that they relied on other people to do their dirty work for them. While the Maharaja and the Comtessa lounge around in their grandiose kicks, an army of slippered servants scurries about cooking, cleaning, filing and wiping infant noses.
Yet such gestures of dramatised dependency turn out to be only half the story. Another section of the exhibition is dedicated to the feeling of power that a set of manageably high heels can provide. In Qing dynasty China, for instance, women from eminent Manchu families wore richly embroidered shoes with a six-inch elevation that hoisted them far above the shorter Han women with their tiny bound feet. Not only did this lead to a sense of pleasing superiority, but it also allowed Manchu women to place themselves firmly in men’s sightlines. In ancient Greece a similar spirit of competition was in evidence when women attempted to follow the example of various stone Aphrodites by opting for thick-soled footwear. Their real intention, suggested the satirists, was to make sure they stood out in a crowd.
The commentators may have been right. Some women say they feel “powerful” in heels, others feel “sexy”. In truth, it can be difficult to parse the difference between the two. But that’s the great thing about shoes – they refuse to be pinned down to a single, reductive reading, insisting instead on bouncing up again as if made entirely of cork. Hence the way that so many of the shoes in this exhibition manage to be both legitimate and wayward, serious and slutty at the same time.

Shoes for bound feet, China, late 1800s. Photograph: courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Nowhere is this clearer than in the section devoted to the shoe industry’s borrowings from the sex trade. Discreet pilferings first became apparent in the 1890s when boots that looked as though they belonged in a brothel turned up on ordinary women doing a spot of light shopping in Selfridges. By the 1920s the blameless wives of European industrialists regularly stepped out in the kind of heels that would make a streetwalker blush. But the real blurring of boundaries occurred in the first decade of the 21st century when the main motifs of fetish footwear – patent leather, tight buttoning, toe cleavage, naked arches and sky-high heels – started to stalk the catwalk. In 2007 Christian Louboutin embarked on a collaboration with David Lynch entitled “Fetish” in which he made a series of what he admitted were “unwearable” shoes that the film-maker photographed on tottering, sprawling, naked models. Two years later Yves Saint Laurent’s “Tribute” sandal was spotted for what it actually was – a pole dancer’s shoe, complete with a platform sole for launching the wearer into a spectacular spin.
That moment of hypersexuality has passed, and we are now in the middle of a season of the so-called “ugly shoe” – flat, utilitarian and, like as not, a variation on something sensible that you were forced to wear at the age of eight. (It is for that reason that the dress code at Cannes this year made its odd stipulation about women having to wear heels on the red carpet: clearly there was a panic that people would turn up looking like they’d come straight from the beach.)
But if hooker chic is taking time off, there is no shortage of enthusiasm among avant-garde makers for exploring the extreme shapes into which the shoe – and the foot inside it – can be pushed and pulled. These days you’ll find Zaha Hadid applying her knowledge of complex structures to build a cantilever system that allows her “Nova” shoe to sport a surprisingly comfy six-inch heel. Dominic Wilcox has designed a prototype shoe that incorporates a GPS device into its heel. When you want to go home, all you have to do is click your heels together, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Alexander McQueen, meanwhile, has bequeathed us his “Armadillo” booties, which transform the wearer into a mutated superhuman, much as Noritaka Tatehana’s vertiginous take on the “geta” – the sandals worn by geisha – recently transformed Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness into creatures from some strange new vision of the floating world.

Naomi Campbell falling over at the Vivienne Westwood fashion show, Paris in 1993. Photograph: News (UK) Ltd/Rex Features

But you don’t have to be an aristocratic model with avant-garde toes to care about this stuff. One of the great shifts in recent years, says the V&A’s curator Helen Persson, is the way that the language of shoe obsession has filtered down and broadened out. “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of Sex and the City”, she explains. The HBO series, which ran from 1998 to 2004, starred Sarah Jessica Parker as the shoe-fixated Carrie Bradshaw, a New York journalist whose worst nightmare comes true when she is mugged at gunpoint for her shoes. Her happiest moment, by contrast, occurs when she stumbles on a pair of Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes – a single-strapped sandal – in the Vogue stock cupboard: “I thought these were an urban shoe myth!” That was the exact point in time, Persson suggests, that women with no previous exposure to the airless world of high fashion started to recognise not simply the names of leading shoe designers but their signature styles: red heels for Louboutin, crystals for Jimmy Choo, stilettos for Manolo Blahnik. It was like being given the password to the cool gang at school.
Knowing this stuff in theory and living it out in practice are, of course, different things. The exhibition ends by trying to understand why some women, and a few men, build up vast collections of shoes that they are unlikely to ever get round to wearing. It can’t be with any hope of making a profit: even the most spectacular pair of strappy Ferragamos do poorly at auction in comparison with a vintage Chanel suit or a Schiaparelli skirt. The pleasure seems to come from looking and touching. “Guya”, for instance, has a pair of Céline mink-fur pumps that are so precious that they can never leave the house. Another collector, who stores her shoes on bookshelves in her bedroom reports happily: “The first thing I see every morning are my shoes.” “Jeff”, meanwhile, is a sneaker-head with more than 1,000 pairs, who explains how hard it is becoming to maintain his collection’s individuality now that there are so many fanatics chasing each new limited edition. Other collections, meanwhile, turn out to be patterned by repetition rather than grand design. The exhibition contains a sample from Imelda Marcos’s legendary stash, and the great surprise here is how wedded the former first lady of the Philippines was to a serviceable mid-heel in neutral colours.

Two-teethed Geta, Japan, c1920. Photograph: courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum

The strangest collecting story of all, however, concerns Lionel Bussey, who collected women’s shoes from about 1914 until his death in 1969, by which time he had acquired 600 pairs. His hunting ground was the high street, typically Dolcis and Lilley & Skinner. Bussey had a keen eye for fashion, managing to pick the emblematic styles for each passing decade. The obvious conclusion must be that he spent his evenings either trying on the shoes himself or lovingly fingering their “tongue”, “throat” and “waist”. But that doesn’t quite work: the shoes Bussey collected straddle a whole range of women’s sizes and many of them have never been unwrapped. What’s more, he never seems to have had a moment’s embarrassment about his unusual hobby, making it clear that he hoped that his collection would end up in a museum. Doubtless, Bussey lived in simpler times, when a gentleman was free to collect ladies’ shoes as unselfconsciously as if they were postage stamps or birds’ eggs. But his story is also a reminder that sometimes shoes are just shoes: practical, pretty and, if you stick to the high street as he did, an affordable pleasure in a world that is remarkably resistant to fairytale endings.

Rory McIlroy Rocks Limited Edition Nike Golf Shoes on Masters Sunday

Rory McIlroy may not have won a green jacket on Sunday at Augusta National, but he did get a new pair of Nike golf shoes.
The world's top-ranked player debuted a limited edition version of Nike's Lunar Control 3 shoes in the final round of the 2015 Masters. Rory's new kicks feature the familiar white/black/green color scheme of Nike's Vapor line of golf clubs, as well as a special chrome-colored swoosh.
The limited editon cleats have the same technical specs found in the standard Lunar Control 3 model, including Nike Flywire technology for lateral support and a carbon fiber midfoot shank for increased stability.

Photo: Courtesy of Nike

Sole of Limited Edition Nike Lunar Control 3 Golf Shoes

The limited edtion Lunar Control 3 shoes are available at Nike.com as long as supplies last.
McIlroy began the final round of the Masters 10 shots behind Jordan Spieth and played alongside fellow Nike golfer Tiger Woods.

Through the years: Nike's history of sustainable innovation

What began in the 1990s as a response to issues in a complex supply chain has evolved into a business insight at the core of Nike's growth strategy – one that focuses on delivering innovations across its supply chain to create products that are better for athletes, its business, and the planet.
That evolution, which turns risk into an innovation opportunity by embracing transparency and collaboration, makes sense for business and can help solve some of the world's most pressing challenges. As Nike president and CEO Mark Parker put it: "Nike succeeds because we're obsessed with innovation. We are relentlessly curious about our world and how we can make it better. We apply that curiosity to our sustainability efforts, and we continue to learn what is required for real, meaningful progress."
So how did Nike go from the starting line to running full speed toward a more sustainable future? Click on the graphic below to explore some of the major milestones for yourself.

Copy on this page is provided by Nike, supporter of the sustainable design hub

High heels and their perennial appeal: why pain seems a small price to pay

Marilyn Monroe famously had half an inch chopped off one of hers to enhance the wiggle in her walk, while supermodel Veronica Webb claims they "put your ass on a pedestal, where it belongs". I'm talking, of course, about high heels. Those towers of female footwear that combine a plethora of complex contradictions: empowerment, vulnerability, sexual allure, femininity, subversion, fetishism.

Whatever they mean to you, it seems one thing is consistent: British women can't get enough of them. A study has revealed that we teeter around in the highest heels of all our European counterparts, on average elevating our feet by 8.25cm. In fact, a quarter of British women regularly brave stilettos that perch precariously between 10 and 15cm, inspired by the likes of Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole, Elle Macpherson and Kelly Brook, all of whom are devotees of such skyscraping styles.
The Duchess of Cambridge, whose dedication to her LK Bennett "Sledge" 11cm heels has been much commented on, has done wonders for the popularity of the leg-lengthening powers of the "nude" platformed stiletto. The £195 style, from the brand's Signature Collection, has sold out numerous times, and the company is currently stocking the flattering, classic court in a revenue-generating 12 colours to meet consumer demand for a new take on Kate Middleton's style.
So what exactly is the appeal of the high heel? Is it an empowering accessory, a weapon in the arsenal of post-feminist women's sartorial power? Or is it a subversive relic from a male-dominated world, designed to cripple vulnerable women in their quest to meet a fashionable and social ideal?
Former Clothes Show presenter Vanessa Scott runs a successful video production company within the fashion and luxury goods industry and – even at a statuesque 5ft 10in – knows all too well the power of a heel. "I'm very much part of the Sex and the City generation and, for me, high heels will always be synonymous with Carrie Bradshaw. Her obsession with shoes was symbolic of a woman's sexual and financial freedom today. What woman doesn't adore high heels? They provide the illusion of instant liposuction and are Viagra for the soul. Quite simply, you look sexier and feel sexier – what man could resist?"
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A study earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Physiology revealed that women who habitually wear high heels are at a heightened risk of permanent damage to their knees, hips, back and tendons, because the shoe shape forces the wearer to place all of her body weight on the ball of the foot, compromising stability. This, in turn, makes her compensate for the instability by pushing her knees and hips forward and arching her back.
Despite the discomfort and the potential damage associated with heels, the psychologist Bernard Rudofsky, author of The Unfashionable Human Body, says: "Physical distress is accepted by women if it is a constitutional part of the pleasure of courtship and mating. Women will furiously defend their high heels because any distress to their feet is in itself a form of attraction for men, many of whom feel it is a sacrifice made for them."
Camilla Morton believes the appeal of the heel is more deeply ingrained in women's psyche. The fashion writer and author of How to Walk in High Heels is a disciple of the Manolo Blahnik heel and describes her passion thus: "As a nation, our children are brought up reading fairy stories, and we associate heels with transformation. It's about the glass slipper that Cinderella slips on before being whisked off to the ball. We don't swan around in crinolined ball gowns and horse-drawn coaches, but we can wear the heels with the magical aura. Without a doubt, putting on a pair of heels is totally transformative: they make you feel something special is going to happen. As young girls, many of us looked up to our mothers wearing high heels and they symbolised everything that was womanly in the world. Barbie, with her pink stilettos and feet permanently moulded to wear heels, was everything a grown-up was meant to be: forget the boobs, the heels turn you into a woman."
I, certainly, am not immune to the aggrandising nature of these soaring shoes. While I now spend much of my life as the mother of a four-year-old running around in trainers, brogues or ballet pumps, I have over the last two decades accrued a collection of heels that would not be out of place in a costume archive.
There are beribboned Pradas with spindle-like stilettos wrapped in velvet the colour of Parma Violets. For more vampish occasions, I wear patent red Mary Janes with high-rise heels and matching soles by the cobbler du jour, Christian Louboutin.
I have more silk courts by Anya Hindmarch and teetering rose pink satin Jimmy Choo mules scattered with a sprinkling of beads. Row upon row of stacked boxes bear the names of Rupert Sanderson, Marni, Dolce & Gabbana, Gina, Christian Dior, Topshop, Emma Hope, Paul Smith, Moschino and Ralph Lauren.
Many are the remnants of a more glamorous pre-parenting life, attending fashion industry parties and reporting from the red carpet. They have little relevance in my current incarnation, juggling my daughter's ballet lessons and playdates with my home-based, slipper-clad work as a freelance writer, but I unwrap a pair of heels at every opportunity. This weekend, I briefly discarded my "mum-shoes" for a sexy pair of killer heels and was instantly shifted into party mode for a friend's 40th birthday.
For my first wedding, in 1993, Mr Choo himself measured my feet and handmade a pair of couture Duchess satin heels to match my gown. The magic of those shoes lasted longer than the marriage, and when I wed my second husband last year I wore a wonderful pair of silver, strappy glittered heels by Martine Sitbon – the perfect platform for a diminutive 5ft 2in bride to kiss her 6ft 4in husband.
As someone who is below average in terms of my physical stature – British women are now among the shortest in Europe, with the average 18- to 29-year-old measuring in at 5ft 4in (163cm) – I relish the leg-lengthening opportunity to slip my size 4s into the shoemakers' equivalent of the Shard.
A pair of heels allows me to view the world from a different vantage point. I can look people in the eye, so those who previously looked down their nose at me must view me on their level – a psychological benefit that comes into play socially and in the workplace.
Zoe Mayson, a business psychologist, suggests that I am not alone in valuing the heel as a professional asset. "There are a lot of people who think women do themselves a disservice by wearing heels, but I'm not in that camp. They are a psychological asset, and we can use them to our advantage. I work a lot with men in suits around a boardroom table, and I would never lead a session in flats. Heels give me gravitas that I would not have in lower shoes.
"From an evolutionary point of view, natural selection favours traits that increase our individual reproductive success. Heels get you noticed and give you physical stature, which in turn, gives you power, without compromising your femininity. So often, women have to take on male attributes to be successful in the workplace, and this is a great way of digging our heels in and saying no."
Just look at the self-confessed glamour-geek Marissa Mayer, the newly-appointed president and CEO of Yahoo! in her sassy stilettos and you can see that heels and brains are a potent combination in even the most male-dominated of industries.
Historically, heels have been used as a form of marking power: some 10,000 years ago, tribal chieftains were known to wear stilts at meetings to allow them to look down on the members of their tribe. And, in the 16th century, when European aristocrats adopted the heels favoured by Catherine de Medici, they were outraged when commoners began to wear them too. A law was passed prohibiting anyone below the "rank" of gentry from wearing heels – hence, the expression "well-heeled".
Even in colonial America, under British rule, a similar law existed: "Citizens of common class … are prohibited from wearing boots or shoes of satin cloth or ribbons, or of bright colours, or shoes with stilted heels. All such footwear is a mark of rank and privilege. Those of lesser class who attempt to emulate those of stations above by their attire will be considered in violation of His Majesty's laws and subject to fine or jail or both."
Jump to the 1950s and the popularity of the newly created stiletto heel reached pandemic proportions. Inspired by the creations of Salvatore Ferragamo and Roger Vivier – known as the Fabergé of footwear, women complemented the full-skirted hourglass silhouette of their "New Look" postwar fashion with a seductive stiletto heel, echoing the glamour of Hollywood icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.
Not until the 1980s were heels the height of fashion, with the advent of Dynasty-style power dressing as women climbed the career ladder, and the infamous white stiletto worn by everyone from Diana, Princess of Wales, to the stereotypical Essex girl, dancing around her handbag to Bananarama – in 1987, the high street chain Dolcis sold over a quarter of a million pairs of the much derided style.
Today, thanks to Carrie Bradshaw, Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik are household names, and £25k-a-year office juniors aspire to own designer heels that cost more than their monthly rent. In an age where princesses wear high street heels to meet the US president, there's plenty of mileage left in the high heel yet.
As the footwear historian William A Rossi points out, "most women prefer a trip to hell in high heels than to walk flat-heeled to heaven".

Designer shoes: why I'm afraid of heights

My feet are killing me: Kylie Minogue sports a pair of Christian Louboutins. Photograph: Brian J Ritchie/Hotsauce/Rex Features
Shall we talk about shoes? Shall we? And then can we talk about handbags and stuff too? A few weeks ago, I mentioned idiotically high shoes and said they were over. I ever so slightly fibbed. There are still shoes for next season that will require mounting blocks and full medical insurance. There are two shoe trends that worry me – one is the "tapered wedge" (© Invisible Woman) and the other is the overlong toe. The "tapered wedge" is what I'm calling a shoe that, when you stand up in it, occupies about the same floor space as a postage stamp. If you're on sabbatical from Cirque du Soleil, you might even be able to walk in them. I can only recommend them if you invest in a pair of matching crutches – that way you'll be one step ahead (ahem).
Personally, I have never really got on with Louboutin – every pair I have ever tried have been excruciating and he will persist in designing idiotically high shoes for idiotically high prices. Although, to be fair to M Louboutin, I will admit to serially trying on his shoes just to see if my tiny hooves can be taught to tolerate them. I yearn for a red instep but I just don't have Louboutin feet. On my last visit to the shop I was almost seduced by a pair of foxy tartan jobbies had it not been for the price, and the height. So, in fact, I rest my case.
The second shoe trend – the overlong toe – is something you're likely to encounter in what initially seems to be a good idea: flat shoes or shoes with a kitten heel. I'm not a fan of kitten heels on the basis that they force you to walk like a duck and if the toes are overlong they trip you up at a ratio of approximately one trip to every three steps. They catch in, on, between or underneath almost anything. They are very nearly as much of a death trap as the tapered wedge and, frankly, my hips are fine just the way they are. I rather like the mid-height chunky heel, though, and not just because I already have a pair in my shoe stash from a couple of years ago. You know where you are with a chunky heel … safe.
Handbags, it seems, are much the same as they ever were and have evolved very little – except that this is where I could work in the metallic trend if I wished. I was a bit smitten with Burberry's leather bowling bag in "cowslip" and I'll be looking out for something similar with a smaller price tag. There's also the smart practicality of the "trapeze" shape, which seems an altogether sensible idea. Speaking of which, I had always thought clear Perspex bags were stupid until I saw a clever Charlotte Olympia one and they suddenly made sense. But I hate swapping bags – or I did until I started keeping stuff in little zipper bags, which makes switching that much easier and opens up all sorts of possibilities for chopping and changing.
And finally, there is good news on the makeup front, with minimal looks being much to the fore, which suits those of us with older skin very well indeed. Keep it looking as bare as you can – a tinted moisturiser is best. If you use powder then make sure you brush off the excess – a dusty face is not a good thing, ever. Cobalt blue is still The Colour but not, alas, a colour I am fond of wearing, and blue shadow is awfully hard to pull off without looking a bit Baby Jane. However, I would use it as a smudged line of blue beneath the eye in the same way Zandra Rhodes does. If you're looking for new lippy, I really liked the mixed-up pink and orange lip seen at MAC. It's a look I can easily adapt as long as I remember that less is more and will remain so for ever and ever now I'm past 50. Amen.