Hey, foot fashionistas! There’s a new set of tootsies in town. I’m TrainingHeels, and I’ll be sharing my secrets for keeping it stylish on a budget, sassy in boring business zones, and comfortable and upright on difficult terrain. I split time between San Francisco, LA and New York, so I’m always prepared for a walking, dining, driving, stairclimbing, running to an appointment, see and be seen challenge. (More on my tips for walking, driving and dancing properly and stylishly in each city in a later post).
I have an interesting shoe heritage, having grown up in my parents’ shoe sales and shoe repair shops, watching the most beautiful Prada heels and Gucci loafers shuffled in bruised and broken and paraded out proud and gleaming, good as new. If you’ve got repair questions, I’m your gal, and if I don’t have the answer, I will inquire with the best of cobblers.
I’ve had the unfortunate diagnosis from a host of podiatrists (I kept hoping one was wrong and seeking another opinion!) of having plantar fasciitis, also known as the bubonic plague that wipes out your stilettos in one fell swoop. I haven’t let that stop me from participating in the art of shopping for and wearing delectable foot candy.
First off, I stretch my feet regularly and roll them over a foot massager nightly. For the long dashes across the Meatpacking District’s cobblestones or Russian Hill’s slopes on nights out, I place a pair of Scoop ballets, Born arch support flats, French Sole leopard slippers or Tory Burch Revas on my feet (which one depends on how big my bag is that night) with fantastic Pedag insoles, then put the 4-inch curvy Chloe black leather crosshatch-strapped toe cleavage stilettos that have been dangling from my hands back on. How many of you ladies do this bait-and-switch on going out nights or even before and after work? Here are some of my bait-and-switchers:



If you’re dedicated to funky statement shoes that take the outfit’s cake like I am, you’re in luck, because tis truly the season of the shoe. “It seems like the shoe is really the fetish item that has taken the place of the ‘it’ bag,” Mickey Boardman of Paper Magazine heralded at the closing of the Spring 2009 fashion shows. “It’s all about who has the sickest shoe.”
Hallelujah! The shoes at the shows were incredibly creative and I’m sure some of that will trickle down to pret-a-porter and bargain basement!
Even the fiercest Iman would need a set of training heels to teach her how to walk in these Spring 2009 Dior embellished platform heels with a fertile goddess figure on the heel. You can’t be lukewarm on these babies if you love shoes! So what do you think? Would you wear them? If not, because of the height, the likelihood of snagging someone’s dress on the heel, the appearance, or something else? I’m not saying what I think of them till you do!

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