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While riding the subway to work on Tuesday morning, I drowsily read the latest Entertainment Weekly. I like reading "fluff" on my way to and from work, as it is a gentle transition for my overtaxed brain. As I skimmed a sidebar on the possibilities for this summer's "it" song, my eyes lingered on a photo of 20 year old singer Rihanna. She was looking rather sassy in her tight pants, low-cut black corset-style top with pink polka dots, and stiletto heel platform shoes that seemed to be at least 4 inches high. I sighed loudly, causing two people to look over at me suspiciously. If there is one fashion I hate more than pointy-toed shoes, it is stiletto heels.
When is this woman-hating trend ever going to go away? It probably doesn't help that the new Sex and the City is opening this weekend, which is actually what the entire issue of EW was dedicated to, including Carrie's Manolos. (Trust me, any New Yorker who regularly rides the subway or walks anywhere does not wear stilettos on a daily basis. Even the most talented stilt walker would break an ankle.) I know that flats are sort of in, and thanks to the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere, flip flops are slapping sidewalks once again. Yet when it comes to sexiness, everyone turns to mile-high heels, health consequences be damned!
The hilarious, brilliant, and (in my mind) stylish Jennifer Ouellette explains the health risks (and a fabulous scientific equation for how high a heel can be before a women topples over) of heels at Cocktail Party Physics:
Stevenson's formula was primarily concerned with balance, but the awkward angles and high pressures associated with heels has been cause for concern in some circles. For years now, orthopaedists, podiatrists and other medical sorts have been warning women about the health risks of routinely donning high heels: bunions, stress fractures, joint pain in the ball of the foot (because weight is shifted to the ball of your foot, rather than being distributed over the entire foot), corns and calluses, hammertoes, ingrown toenails, toenail fungus, and something called "pump bumps" (enlargement of the bony area on the back of the heel). High heels have been linked to injured leg muscles, lower back pain, and osteoarthritis in the knee, too, because when you wear heels, the foot slides forward, redistributes your weight and creates those unnatural pressure points. You can pretty much kiss healthy spinal alignment goodbye.
High heels also mean your heel bones don't regularly come into contact with the ground, so the Achilles tendon can't stretch out properly while walking, and thus becomes shortened and/or tightened. Then there's a little thing called Morton's neuroma, a growth of nerve tissue in the foot -- usually between the third and fourth toes -- that arises when you wear too-tight shoes, causing sharp burning pain in the ball of your foot and a stinging or numbness in your toes. The list goes on and on. In fact, thanks to high heels, the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society estimates that women account for 90% of surgeries performed each year for common foot ailments. That's about $3.5 billion annually in the US alone, according to this May 2007 article in the Washington Post.
Ouch! Yes, I understand that beauty often comes at the price of comfort and sometimes even health. (That's why I am a Dansko clog wearing slob.) And, yes, before you say, "You can have my stilettos when you pry them off my cold dead feet," I acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with women wanting to look or feel sexy. Shelly at Sista So Fine recently took stock and decided:
After a careful inventory of my closet, I have come to the conclusion that all of my shoes are less than sexy. Cute, yes. Sassy, most assuredly. But sexy... hell to the naw! Will a pair of iridescent pearl gladiator stilettos from Jimmy Choo do the trick? Let's strap in and find out. ($750)
Now, I sort of gasped when I got a gander of the shoes that Shelly chose to vamp up her shoe wardrobe. (Part of it was due to the price, but the other part was the fact that these shoes look to me like serious torture devices in more ways than one.) And I wonder if it is not only the
