Women's shoes

Although there are many differences in shoes styles and applications, one of the biggest variations in shoe design is that found between women's and men's footwear.

Although essentially worn for the same purposes, men's and women's shoes are often radically different in appearance, the materials used and the build quality. And the reason, simply the demands of fashion.

Certain shoe types like trainers (sneakers) and some sandals seem almost exempt from this generality, however with most shoes and chiefly dress shoes, work shoes and partying shoes, the differences become very apparent.

Typical features of a lady's shoe

The most distinguishing characteristic of a ladies shoe is the heel. In a man's shoe the heel is normally less than one inch (25 mm) in height, however with ladies fashion shoes the heel can extend several inches in height.

The effect of this high heel shoe is to place the foot in a very unnatural position where the heel is considerably higher that the toes. This changes the way that not only the feet, but also the legs and even the back and spine behave during standing and walking. From an orthopedic perspective this is far from ideal.

The benefits of high heels are of course zero. They may be fashionable, however they damage the feet and body in many ways. Firstly they prevent the balanced distribution and transfer of weight during standing and walking. Secondly they push and constrain the toes into the toe box. This is often compounded by tight and narrow toe boxes. Thirdly, these and many other problems reverberate through the lower and upper legs and into the torso and the back.

In a young person foot, leg and back problems may not be apparent in early life, however they may will manifest themselves in years to come when the prolonged wearing of unhealthy shoes can cause any number of skeletal and muscular problems.

Unfortunately the problems with lady's fashion shoes do not stop with high heels. Many ladies shoes are made with the intent of looking small and petite, however this comes at a cost. These are not sensible shoes.

One way of making a shoe look small is to reduce (or completely remove) supportive padding and cushioning. This padding and cushioning keeps the feet supported, prevents scuffing and grazing and protects them from the impacts of walking. Removing this padding makes the feet more vulnerable to short and long term damage.

Another way of making shoes small in appearance is to constrict the feet. This is achieved through narrow tow boxes and narrow uppers that the feet are unnaturally squeezed into. This is common in many lady's shoe designs. The shoe should fit the foot and not the other way around

Yet another way of keeping shoes “small looking” is to make them smaller by omitting, or reducing in size, structural parts of the shoe. The most obvious way to do this is to make the uppers smaller, i.e. to have a lower throat, shorter counter, smaller quarters and vamps and to generally lower the level of the top line. The result is a smaller looking shoe, but one that covers and supports even less of the foot.

Obviously women like to wear fashion shoes and it is impossible to remove this style of shoe altogether. However it is not difficult to minimise the effects of wearing this type of shoe, simply by reducing wearing time. As an example, anyone who works whilst sat behind a desk will not usually have their shoes in a visible position. This means that fashion shoes can be worn to and from the work place, but replace by comfort shoes, trainers or orthopedic shoes whilst sitting at a desk or walking around.