I’m no stranger to foot pain–in fact, it’s foot pain that prompted me to write about shoes in the first place. As a freshly diagnosed sufferer of plantar fasciitis and heel spurs and as a lifelong shoe lover, I started searching for footwear that would be both fashionable and comfortable. I gave away almost all of my high heel collection, got rid of the rest of my painful shoes, and started snooping around for shoes that would treat me right in every way, accommodating my high arch, with the subsequent elevated instep, my heel pain, my newly acquired orthotics, and my sense of style. I’ve documented this search elsewhere–and I will continue to do it on StylePad.

Although I’ve finally come to appreciate comfort first and foremost in shoes (at least in the shoes I buy!), there are shoe abominations out there that, despite their claim to comfort, are nevertheless painful to look at. And aesthetic pain is just as bad as, if not worse than, foot pain, don’t you agree?

So despite the claims of Z-Coil wearers that the ugliness on the right (the "Taos Clog") relieves foot pain caused by heel spurs and what not, guess what? You’ll never see me in it. Because some things, especially when they manage to somehow be uglier than 10 pairs of Birkenstocks and 10 Crocs put together, should never see the light of day.