From Desiree, the shoe guru at About.com, comes this highly useful advice for wearing flats to your best advantage.

Make Sure Your Flat Shoes Look Fashionable

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Welcome to April. And welcome to our new semi-regular column, Ask the Shoebloggers, wherein you get to send us your burning shoe-related questions, and we’ll do our very best to answer them. Think of this as the "Dear Abby" column of the shoe world.

Our first Ask the Shoebloggers question comes from a determined shopper looking to add some comfortable shoes to her wardrobe.

I’m trying to put together my first real wardrobe. Unfortunately, I am still ridiculously poor. I recently learned that shoes can be comfortable and have since vowed to only buy comfortable shoes. Unfortunately this means I have to get rid of all my shoes and start over. I was wondering what are some brands (relatively reasonable) that are known for having comfortable shoes. I’ve heard that Nine West shoes are comfortable and when I tried a pair of Nordstrom wedge sandals on I was shocked at the comfort. Could you recommend some pumps that are wonderfully comfortable, stylish and affordable?

An excellent quest! Who doesn’t need a basic pump? I totally feel your predicament. Unfortunately, the "premium" comfort brands do tend to be pretty expensive. But here are a couple ideas on finding more affordable comfortable shoes.

First off, and I really can’t stress this enough, be a sale hunter. You can find some amazing discounts at online shoe stores like Zappos.com, Shoes.com, Endless.com, which all have great selections and plenty of comfortable brands. I’m a firm believer that everytime you can find a pair of shoes that’s normally outside your budget for a discount that puts them within your reach, it’s a chance to up the quality of your shoe collection.

And on a related note, I’d highly recommend buying the most expensive shoes you can reasonably afford. Don’t break your wallet or go into debt, of course, but rather than finding something that’s quick and cheap and gets the job done, take some time to try and find something that’s made from higher quality materials and with more attention to detail. Sure, that usually means the price goes up, but like I said above, if you can find those expensive shoes at a discount, you end up spending the same amount you would have on a cheaper brand but getting something of a higher quality.

Now, on to the brands. Nine West does indeed make a line that’s particularly geared toward comfort. It’s called Cloud 9, and their shoes do tend to be a nice hybrid of style and comfort. Also, Aerosoles makes shoes that are quite comfortable and affordable. And they’ve upped their style quotient bigtime over the past few seasons. Check out the Envy pumps.

Same goes for Easy Spirit… once known only for comfort and pretty aggressively style-less, they’re now making some really nice looking shoes. Like the Impulso pump

and the County pump, which is on sale right now for only $40! (well, if you’re an 8 or 9 Narrow).

Kenneth Cole Reaction also makes some comfy and stylish shoes that tend to be more affordable than the Kenneth Cole line shoes.

So, happy shoe shopping, and may you enjoy the discovery that shoes can be both stylish AND comfortable.

If you have shoe questions you’d like to put to us, send an email to jitterbugbaby@shoeblog.com and shoesense@shoeblog.com.

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Dear reader,

I have a confession to make. Although I am almost always in favor of comfortable, stylish shoes, I have a great weakness for beautiful shoes that are practically unwearable in their height or construction. Usually, I resist this weakness with ease, since I also firmly believe in taking good care of your feet with proper support, good construction, and reasonable height (which for me tops out at about 2.25/2.5 inches).

Last night, however, I gave in. Here’s what happened.

As some of you may have seen over on the forums, I’ve been searching for the perfect shoes to match a dress I just bought.

The dress is this one:

Last night, I bundled up and headed off, dress in hand, to my local DSW in the frigid weather. The goal: find a pair of gold sandals/shoes to wear with this puppy.

After trying on about half a dozen pairs, I narrowed it down to two. Both by BCBGMAXAZRIA (a brand that makes gorgeous shoes, but which often makes comfort concessions in the name of fashion that keep me from being able to wear them). It came down to a choice between a wedge and a stiletto, seen here:

and

As you can clearly see, neither of these is in the slightest a comfortable shoe. However, here are several factors now forcing me to make a hard decision between these two beauties.

1. The stilettos match the gold color of the dress better than the wedges.

2. The wedges (being wedges) are slightly more comfortable than the stilettos.

3. As far as style goes in a vacuum (not trying to match a dress), I like the wedges better.

4. Neither of these shoes are likely to be worn very often, except with this dress to parties where I can do a lot of sitting down.

5. The stilettos were a mere $30. The wedges were $60.

And with those factors to consider, dear reader, what might you suggest for my predicament? 

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My husband is one of those people who has a personal relationship with his shoemaker. (He has a personal relationship with his tailor and eyebrow-waxer, too, but that’s another story. And between you and me, I’m glad I don’t have to remind him to take care of that unibrow.)

I, on the other hand, know of what shoemakers do only vicariously, through him. I never was particularly inclined to attach taps to the heels and tips of my shoes (in clear only!), or give my shoes a proper shine, change their shoestrings, or resole them. Au contraire, a badly broken shoe usually meant–you guessed it!–an opportunity to buy a new pair.

Recently, however, I acknowledged, grudgingly, that shoemakers can and do make a difference.

See, I purchased these Donald Pliner Cybel loafers as a chic, sporty pair for city-wear. I didn’t want something too sneaker-like (in general, not really my style) and these fit the bill. They were colorful, simple but elegant, looked comfortable, and they were by Donald J. Pliner, which is known for quality and comfort. Also, they were 55% off on sale. I’m a sale whore, what can I say.

Unfortunately, the high cut of the shoe didn’t go well at all with my high arch+high instep combo. In fact, I could barely slip them on. They cut deep into my instep, to the point that it became really painful. Still, not deterred by the ill-fit at home, I decided to wear them outside to break them in (they have suede uppers–how hard could it be?), so I couldn’t return them. Breaking them in turned out to be pretty hard. ‘Excruciating’ comes to mind.

So, I was stuck with a pretty and well-made but impractical shoe–which goes to show how much credence you can put in those online reviews (which for this particular shoe were very good). Each woman’s experience is unique. The stiff instep problem was not mentioned once in the reviews on Zappos, and even more puzzling, over 70% of the reviewers described the shoe as having excellent arch support. Why, these shoes are flat as a pancake! Do they even know what arch support is? Sheesh! (My orthotics take care of my arch problems, but still.)

I just had to consider having them stretched at a shoemaker’s, you know? After all, they had cost over $80 and were now bound to be stuck in my shoe closet for ever. Luckily, I discovered that overcoming my fear of shoemakers really paid off. For only $4, they stretched them for me into a comfortable, relaxed fit. Nay, even luxurious. Yes, a luxurious fit describes this well. Now I can trot around downtown for miles without the dreaded instep chafing (which, by the by, happened with thin or thick socks, no exception).

I think I’m going to form a personal relationship with my shoemaker, too. Totally worth it!

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