Showing posts with label Women’s shoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women’s shoes. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2014

WOMEN’S SHOES


My physician looked at my toes and exclaimed, “Oh, you poor thing!”—hardly the sort of comment I wanted to hear from her. My toes were twisted and bent. Besides being ugly as sin, they hurt; why had I postponed doing something about them for many years? She sent me off to a podiatrist and a radiologist. An X-ray confirmed that my feet were permanently deformed. The toe bones bent at alarming angles (there was also damage to the joints as a result of osteoarthritis, but that’s another story). 

I feared that the podiatrist would recommend repeating the bilateral bunion surgery I had back in 1984. After that I hobbled about in Frankenstein boots for a long time, then was fitted for orthotics and went back to normal shoes. I hoped I could wear high heels again after the surgery, but it has never been possible. Some simple dressy shoes with one-inch heels are the best I have been able to manage. The podiatrist gave me the good news that she would not recommend bunion surgery for me, and the bad, that my feet were too far gone for it. Instead, she suggested better shoes and toe splints that would help align my toes.

Obviously, I will spend the rest of my life with these damaged feet. I can blame my DNA for the hammer toes and flat feet (my feet are identical to my Aunt Edith’s), but can blame no one but myself for most of the deformity. Back in the early sixties, I wore narrow shoes with spike heels and pointed toes, much like the shoes young women wear now. Somehow I forced my feet into them, and wore them as I walked to a subway station, climbed steps, and worked in an office where every woman dressed similarly. We thought we looked good, and would not have considered wearing flat shoes. My feet often hurt (I would surreptitiously remove my shoes and leave them under my desk), but that seemed a small price to pay. Probably the pain showed in my face, though. I might have looked better in flat shoes and with a pain-free smile on my face.

As a child, I read about the pathetic nineteenth-century wealthy Asian women who bound their feet, and  became unable to walk. You’d think everyone today would be wiser, but no doubt the great-granddaughters of those women are wearing shoes having five-inch heels and pointed toes. Whenever I see a young woman wearing those awful shoes and looking uncomfortable, I want to give her a lecture and show her my feet. I have never had the courage to do so, but maybe one of them will read this.

You would think that shoes could be made to look pretty without damaging their wearers’ feet, but no manufacturer seems able to do so. Most comfortable shoes are frankly ugly. I love my REI hiking boots, the most comfortable footwear I’ve ever owned, but the options for wearing them are a bit limited. SAS, Clark’s, and Dansko shoes are well made and nice-looking; they are for casual wear, though. I want something to wear for attending weddings and other occasions. Can’t some shoe designer come up with beautiful, dressy wide shoes that are healthy as well?