Obsessed with Designer Shoes

Diamonds may have been a girl's best friend, but
shoes are giving them a run for their money.

By Samantha Read

      Cinderella knew something all women know: the value of the perfect pair of heels.

When her foot delicately slid into the glass slipper, she not only sported some enviable footwear, she also landed herself a new man and a substantial income boost.

"I don't know who invented the high heel,
but all men owe a lot to him." - Marilyn Monroe

While most women don't chose shoes based on their life-altering potential, there remains an unmistakable bond between a woman and her footwear. In short, women are shoe-obsessed.

Psychologists have vigorously sought the hidden meaning of shoes, ranging from phallic symbols to secret vessels. Some claim that the female shoe-collector is a frustrated traveler, while others believe she is symbolically searching for enlightenment. It may even be simpler than that, says fashion critic Holly Brubach. A new pair of shoes "might not cure a broken heart or soothe a tension headache," she writes, "but they will relieve the symptoms and chase away the blues."

Whatever the reason, women love their shoes. In 2003 alone women in the United States spent a whopping $16 billion on footwear. Women line up around the block in all weather if they catch word of a shoe sale, and know that a new pair of shoes is often the best way to attain a style makeover - after all, they won't make you look fat!

In Japan, designer shoes are taken very seriously. Footwear lined with brick-sized soles has been the rage among women in their teens and twenties, with some of the shoes reaching as high as 20 centimeters (8 inches!). Women haul themselves around in them with the belief that the shoes make themselves appear taller, their legs longer and their faces smaller in proportion. Stylish young women have always been willing to put up with a little discomfort for fashion's sake.

While there have been serious cases of Japanese women toppling off their designer shoes and breaking bones due to the fall, some shoes may actually be good for you. A recent study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health shows that women who wear high heeled shoes may actually be protected from knee joint problems, as there was a link between regular dancing in three inch heels and a reduced risk of knee problems.

Health benefits aside, pop culture has given shoes a leg up in popularity. In The Wizard of Oz, the Good Witch gave Dorothy sparkling ruby red pumps as a reward for knocking off one of the Wicked Witches. Those shoes gave her a whole new persona, and she was able to courageously find her way home (alright, this may be stretching it a tad).

We all remember former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos and her infamous collection of designer shoes. Once quoted as saying "I have no weakness for shoes", she recently donated her enormous collection of over 1200 shoes to the Shoe Museum near Manila. Whether she liked it or not, there is no doubt that shoes changed this first lady's life. "I have been ridiculed, vilified and persecuted because of my shoes. But in a way they saved me. Because when they went through my closets looking for skeletons, all they found were shoes."

Style icon Sarah Jessica Parker and her Sex and the City pals have also helped fuel the fanatical obsession with footwear. After all, shoes are Carrie Bradshaw's number one vice. A few seasons back viewers watched her clop around Manhattan in a pair of Dr. Scholl's wooden slip-ons (previously seen on the feet of your neighborhood flower child in the seventies), and the shoes received a huge resurgence in popularity. Parker even designed a shoe for Nike last spring, and had the profits from her hot pink Presto mesh trainers donated to her favorite charity. If not for the Sex and the City girls, we might not have visions of Manolos dancing in our heads.

Bette Midler once said, "Give a girl correct footwear and she can conquer the world." Perhaps this is why we can justify purchasing three pairs of nearly identical black boots - they'll get us where we need to go, and heck, they'll go with everything.