Shoes | Shoe Fetish

What Type of Shoes to Wear with Your Costume

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The costumes for Halloween are often a time to use your critical thinking skills as you determine just what to wear with that costume. It’s not always easy. Sure, the traditional costume requires the traditional attire, but some of the other costumes require far more thinking and planning. So here is a little helpful list to get you to the right shoes.

Comfort First

Yes, it’s nice to wear the sexy shoes or the really cool looking shoes, but it’s all for nothing if it turns out that those shoes are going to be taken off halfway through the night as you can’t stand the way they are hurting your feet. So, if you can’t come up with a good idea for what kind of shoes you should be wearing, always look to comfort first. You cannot go wrong there.

Flats

Unless the costume is rated R, you are probably good wearing flats for your feet. They will go with almost anything, plus you are likely to find a cheap pair of flats at a discount shoe store that you can use and color to match the outfit. It’s a cheap way to design a funky pair of shoes for your costume. The bottom line here is that most of the focus of your costume will be the clothes itself. Unless you have a color that completely clashes, you’ll be fine with a pair of flats.

Shoes are not the biggest part of the costume in most cases so don’t be afraid to go a little off the beaten path. You’ll find that you are a lot happier with comfort over style.

Filed Under: Fashion, Shoes Tagged With: Clothing, Footwear, Shoe

What you don’t know about those shoes can wreck your feet!

Yes your new high heels are super sexy and they make your calves look amazing but are they healthy? Very few women equate the word “healthy” with what they put on their feet but it is an important question to ask. Are there any consequences to oh-so-high high heels?

Sexy calves that don’t work so well

High heels lack the support and structure feet need putting excess pressure on the balls of the feet. High heels also push the heel upwards for long periods of time which causes the muscles to lock and become stiff. Once high heels are removed the tendons are then stretched causing pain.

woman in high heels

Ugly Feet

Due to a tendancy for high heels to squeeze the toes together, bunions and hammertoes are some of the ugly consequences of regular use. It’s ironic that something designed to make feet look beautiful can actually cause unsightly damage over time.

Pain

It is said that “beauty is pain” but young women who live in high heels may regret putting their body through bottom of the foot (ball) and ankle pain, not to mention the damage to the Achilles tendon that can make the simplest task unbearable. 70% of older women visit a doctor due to foot pain undoubtedly caused by past poor choices in footwear.

Even though tennis shoes are the healthiest option for feet few women will throw away their stilettos. If you must wear high heels save them for special occasions and even then, limit the number of hours of wear. Inserting gel cushions and can help to offset pain, discomfort and future damage.

Filed Under: General, Shoes Tagged With: Foot, Health, High-heeled footwear

Exercises to Strengthen Fallen Arches

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If you have fallen arches then you are well aware of what a struggle buying shoes can be. Having fallen arches means that a person’s foot over pronates when they walk, causing the foot to roll too far inward when stepping down and thus stretching out the muscle in the arch of the foot. This cause it to look like there is no arch (or very little arch) when the person’s foot is flat on the ground.

Unfortunately fallen arches are permanent, and no amount of exercising will give you arches. There are however exercises that will help to strengthen the muscle. For those with fallen arches this is beneficial as they can get quite painful sometimes. Strengthening the muscle that runs along the bottom of the foot may relieve such pain and prevent it. If left untreated, fallen arches can get quite painful and can lead to other foot problems such as joint problems.

The following exercises can help to strengthen the arch of your foot.

Practice grabbing something with your toes, this will give your foot a work out and to help build strength
Practice placing more of your body weight on the outer area of your foot. Those with fallen arches tend to place more weight on the inner foot, which can help cause the arch to fall.
Building the strength in your calf muscle could help fallen arches. Simply stand with your tip toes on the edge of a stair with your heel hanging over and lift your body up and down with your toes. This will help to strengthen your ankles as well as your feet.

Filed Under: Fashion, Shoes Tagged With: Foot, Pain, Physical exercise

Men’s Shoe Tips

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Yes men do care about shoes as much as women do. Most people do not realize it but men have different styles in shoes too. Just like some women do not care about the type of shoes they wear, most men do not care but the ones who do, care more than women about the styles they wear. Hence the stereotyping of men who do not care about what kind of shoes they wear needs to go.

Men have an extensive list of styles in men’s foot wear. Most men’s shoes unlike women’s shoes are comfortable and are mostly used as practical necessities rather than an obsession. Even though men have an extensive number of designs to choose from, they limit their taste to only a few shoes. Men hardy experiment with new shoe designs. What men wear for office, the same foot wear will be found on their shoes after office. Some men can’t wear anything except sneakers.

Choice for the type of shoes is dependent on the type of pants. Socks don’t have to match the shoes. Socks can be a complement to the tie. The belt can be matching with the shoe color. With jeans try sandals, loafers, sneakers, boots, lug soles, etc. The foot wear can complement the top worn on the jeans. For casual pants such as dockers, khakis or chinos, you can wear loafers and oxford shoes. For dress pants, the color of shoe needs to be the same as the suit. Shoes need to be darker than the pants to a lesser degree. Black shoes work great with grey, black and navy pants. Brown shoes go great with green, brown and beige colored pants. Tan shoes go great with blue, beige, and earth tones.

Filed Under: Latest Trends, Shoes Tagged With: Footwear, Shoe, Sock

What Type of Shoes to Wear During Pregnancy

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If you’ve been keeping up with your pregnancy week by week, and really paying attention (making sure you notice the little differences that are occurring), then you know that even in your third or fourth month, before you really start showing, you’re probably already having to consider which shoes you can wear.

This decision can come as a result of a number of factors. You may already be experiencing swelling of your feet. (If you are, mention it to your doctor. Early swelling can be a sign of a problem.) Or, you may have already noticed that your center of gravity has shifted or disappeared all together. Or, you may have noticed that wearing shoes that are too high make your back hurt even worse.

If the latter is the case, you may be tempted to run out and buy the flattest flats you can find. But that can be a bad move, too. As your pregnancy progresses, which you’re going to notice since you’re tracking your pregnancy week by week, you may start experiencing pain in your feet and legs from the additional weight and pressure. Surprisingly, too-flat shoes may aggravate that. You want shoes that have a good arch support in them, as this will help with some of the discomfort.

As for how high is too high, anything that threatens to throw you off-balance or poses a greater risk of making you fall is too high. You’ll have to put the stiletto heels away for a while. But, that’s all right, because you can start wearing them again not too long after you bring your new baby home.

Filed Under: Fashion, Shoes Tagged With: Arch support, Shoe, Stiletto heel

Shoes Built to Hurt

Some shoes are just not made for any woman to wear. They crush your toes together or set your feet at an unreal angle or provide no arch support.

Pointy toes boots, heels or shoes tend to come to a point at the toe and the problem comes when the shoe tries to do this too quickly and pushes your other toes into your foot. Your toes, all of them, need to be able to move around and breathe in your shoes. Shove them against each other and you have the potential for pain and discomfort.

Stiletto high heels can look awesome on women but the small heel print of the stiletto on the ground makes for danger waiting to happen. One moment of not paying attention to the ground around her and she can place her heel in the wrong location and the heel will slip sideways and pop goes the ankle. Doctors have warned against stiletto high heels for years and women continue to be injured.

The shoe that hurts the most women’s feet is the simple flip-flop. It was designed for short trips to the beach or the pool and still works well that those purposes. The problem is that women like to wear them everywhere and they give no support and no protection to the feet.

Do not wear flip-flops to run or jump. They offer no protection and often come off, thus throwing off the stride of the wearer. Shoes without backs, like Crocs, also fall into this category.

For your health, wear shoes that allow your feet to breathe and have some kind of strap across the back to keep them on as you race to catch that train.

Filed Under: Shoes Tagged With: Flip-flops, Foot, Shoe

Happy, Healthy Feet

Most people wear shoes for 8 to 15 hours a day. Ask yourself: when was the last time I had my feet measured? Our feet change shape and size as we age, just like the rest of our body. Is your waist the same as it was five years ago? It is very likely that your feet have changed as well.

Improper fitting shoes can cause many problems like your heels constantly in pain, deformed toes from being squished together, bunions and nerve damage. The feet are excellent gages of your health. Congestive heart failure can have an early warning signal sent by your swollen ankles. Diabetes can be indicated by feet that are insensitive to pain and to changing temperatures. A chronic respiratory disease can be indicated if you have clubbed toe nails.

Often knee problems are related to problems with shoes that are improperly worn. Purchase shoes that are the right size. Often one foot is larger than the other. Buy for the larger foot as most stores will not allow you to buy two different sized shoes.

Go shoe shopping later in the day when your feet are likely to be more swollen. Allow 3/8” to 1/2” from the end of your toes to the tip of the shoe when you are standing up. Expecting a pair of shoes to stretch to fit your feet is asking for pain. Would you hit your feet with a hammer every day? Of course not, so don’t force your feet into a tight environment.

Purchasing the right shoes for your feet can help you to feel great in many ways. So kick up your heels and enjoy life in the right shoes for you.

Filed Under: General, Shoes Tagged With: Bunion, Foot, Shoe

Arched without pain

Shoes, we love them and we hate them. They protect our feet but often they do not fit us correctly. Approaching the purchase of shoes with a knowledge of our own foot type can help us to buy shoes that will help our feet to feel good.

What type of an arch do you have? Grab a paper grocery bag and put it on the floor. Step in a pan that has a little water in the bottom and then step on the paper bag. After removing your foot you will then have an imprint of your foot.

There are three basic types of foot imprints which show how your arch works. With high arched feet the front of the foot and the heel do not touch or touch just a little in the imprint. These people have under-pronated feet and they need cushioning in their shoes to cushion the shock transmission to the lower legs.

Normal arched feet get skinny between the ball and heel of the foot but are thicker than a half inch. Smaller are high arched. These shoe wearers experience the least problems and can wear virtually any shoe. A simple structured cushion in the shoe will help with shock.

Flat footed people have an imprint where the arch is the same width as the heel or wider. These feet have over-pronated feet and they need maximum support to protect against shock transmission.

Read the packages carefully of the shoes or inserts that you will use for your shoes. Look for the keywords for your foot type: high arched or under-pronated, normal arch, and flat footed or over-pronated. Buying the correct insert for your feet will go a long way towards helping your feet and legs not to hurt and give you the satisfaction of being able to walk, run, or jog where you want, when you want, without pain.

Filed Under: Shoes Tagged With: Foot, Foot type, Shoe

Shoes, Designed to Compensate For Bad Foot Design

The shoe has been designed for decades to compensate for perceived problems that we have with our feet. When people walk it sometimes hurts the heel so we compensated for this by adding padding to the heel. Many people have flat feet or fallen arches so we provide them arch supports that are built into the shoe or we apply inserts to accomplish the same thing.

Look at a shoe as it sits on the ground. The toe often points up just a little bit. This helps the wearer to take the next step. Your toes naturally do not point up this way because the whole foot can move semi-independently as you walk through a stride. Because the shoe is a solid structure it cannot move this way and the toe spring is added to not have to drag the toe constantly as you walk.

High heels cause the tendons to shorten for the women who wear them. Often during the spring women who have been wearing high heeled winter boots and then switch to flip-flops experience pain in their tendons as the tendons attempt to stretch back out for the flip-flops.

All this cushioning of the feet and the heels appears now to be all wrong! Chicago’s Rush Medical College did a study comparing impact on the knees between barefoot people and people wearing padded shoes. The surprise was that there was 12 percent less impact on the knee when these people were barefoot!

We still need to wear shoes to be socially acceptable in our society, but take your shoes off at home and walk around barefoot. It will give your feet a chance to breathe and to recuperate from the stresses placed on it by your shoes. If you can take your shoes off at work, then do so.

Maybe it will become acceptable to be barefoot again, maybe not. Nevertheless give your feet a chance at health, take your shoes off.

Filed Under: Latest Trends, Shoes Tagged With: Foot, High-heeled footwear, Shoe

Getting a Heel Up On Depression?

Women who wear high heels are easy to spot; they are walking with the “high heel strut.” Look down and there are the heels, forcing them into this unnatural walking rhythm.

Heels up to two inches are generally considered safe for the ankle and foot but stilettos are rarely safe. One uneven surface and a second of not paying attention and down she goes in a heap of pain or at least bruised ego. No matter how hot the outfit looks, when one is down on the ground grabbing their ankle, the mystique is gone.

Heel heights are going back up again. This is a pattern that seems to coincide with rough economic times starting with the Great Depression way back in the 1930’s. It seems that women use their heels to escape the pressures and to get a mental lift as well as a physical one.

The major issue with high heels is the corollary increase in foot and ankle injuries by the wearers. You might look good in the heels as they give you a step up on the competition, but wearing a cast or ankle brace definitely detracts from that look for the next couple months as your injuries heal.

If you have the need for height, keep the heel under two inches. Wedges distribute your weight better and you can wear higher heels in them. Stay away from stilettos.

Massage your feet after wearing high heels or roll them over a golf ball or ice. These tips help your feet to recover from the experience.

High heels can help you attain heights that you cannot naturally reach, but do so carefully and be good to your ankles and feet.

Filed Under: Latest Trends, Shoes Tagged With: Footwear, High-heeled footwear, Shoe