High Heel Shoe blog

Happy New Year!! We hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday season! 2010 is just hours away!

A study was recently done to find out how memorable a woman’s first kiss was in comparison to remembering the first pair of shoes purchased with their own money. The results were over 92% of women could remember the first pair of shoes, with more than one in three women polled could not recall their first kiss.

In a different survey, over 1,000 women were questioned about their relationship with footwear in contrast to their romantic history, which was posted on a shoe accessory website, and the results were really surprising. While 96% of these ladies regretted throwing away a pair of shoes, only 15% of them felt badly about dumping a boyfriend. These results may be a bit biased based on ‘who’ performed the questionnaire, so readers comments are welcomed.

Below are a few ‘reported’ facts about women and their footwear:

* The average woman has 19 pairs of shoes.
* Four of these pairs are worn regularly, one-fourth of them have only been worn once.
* One in six women owns over 30 pairs.
* Women purchase four new pairs every year.
* One in seven have hidden a new pair of shoes from their partner.
* Six in ten women regret at least one shoe purchase.

Where do you fall? Are you average, above or below average? What is the most you have ever spent on a pair of high heels?

Back in November of 2008 we first brought you the story Lower Shoe Prices for Who? We have been following this headline for over a year and are once again bringing you an update.

On December 16th, two members of the House of Representatives, Representatives Joseph Crowley (D-NY), and Kevin Brady (R-TX) reintroduced the Affordable Footwear Act (H.R. 4316). as a last minute push before Congress adjourns for the holidays.

According to the AAFA, the American Apparel and Footwear Association, “99 percent of all footwear sold in the United States is being imported with a whopping 80 percent being imported from China. The Affordable Footwear Act seeks to end the shoe tax, to ultimately lower the price of shoes.”

The shoe tax was originally introduced during the Great Depression in 1930. This tax had the original intentions to keep U.S. factories open while maintaining employment for Americans during these hard times. It did this by levying and import tax on items such as footwear and agricultural products.

Today the US economy is in trouble. The government is deeper in debt than it has ever been, with most of our debt being bought up by China. A lot of automotive manufacturers have moved their facilities to cheaper regions of the world. Our textile plants and steel mills have long been shut down and abandoned. The U.S. has become a consumer, and one of the largest consumers in the world.

Don’t we need to bring manufacturing and business back to the U.S.?? With the unemployment rate as high as 13% in some areas of the country, why don’t we try and rely less on China and worry about making more products here in the U.S.? By lowering or eliminating the duties we are promoting the economy of overseas industries and giving them right of passage, while also taking money away from our government and slamming the door in the faces of the few manufactures that still produce shoes here in the USA. It is impossible for domestic industries to survive unprotected trade with inferior nations that have lower wages and relaxed EPA and government standards without compromising themselves or their product. As of right now, the average tax payer in America owes the U.S. government right around 10 to 15 thousand dollars. Don’t take us wrong please. Nobody enjoys paying taxes and we agree that the middle and lower classes bear much of the burden that taxes impose. We just find it hard to swallow that the importers that would benefit on the decrease or elimination of the tax, are going to pass these savings along to the retailers that purchase from them. With fuel costs back on the rise, this could be one of the largest excuses heard of why the prices do not drop. Between the costs of the fuel to have them brought overseas from China and the fuel costs to transport the merchandise across the United States, it would be surprising if retailers see any savings. If we do see any savings, we will pass it along to our customers.

We hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween and Thanksgiving. We apologize for the lack of any recent posts. As you can see we have been busy with redesigning our blog to make it more appealing and easier for our readers to enjoy and navigate. We hope you enjoy our new look and encourage your comments and feedback on our posts. We are also currently doing a face lift on The High Heel Shoe Store to make the shopping experience more enjoyable and to give it a much warmer look and feel. We expect to have this ready within the next couple of months. Although we are actively and currently updating the sites in efforts to provide a better shopping experience for our customers, please rest assured that this in no way will affect our customer service or order fulfillment. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to send us an email at any time or call us during business hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am – 6 pm CST).

As we get ready for Christmas and New Year’s, we will be posting several new posts, some of which will be updates to some older stories we have featured.

We would like to post another update to a previous post, Can’t Do Community Service Wearing Heels.

Deborah Stallard, from Torquay, UK, was charged in February with two counts of damaging a vehicle and failing to provide a breath specimen. She had collided with another car and left the scene. At that time the court banned her from driving for three years and ordered her to do community service. After she showed up to do her community service in a pair of 4 inch high heel boots, she was sent home as it was seen as a safety hazard.

Ms. Stallard returned to court last month for re-sentencing. She was hoping that since her footwear was unacceptable to do the manual labor they originally had imposed, that she would be able to serve her time working in a charity shop. Apparently the court did not feel that this was acceptable and her community service was replaced by a six-month electronic tag curfew between the hours of midnight and seven a.m.

Outside the courtroom, Stallard stated that the sentence was “unfair” and she was considering an appeal. “It’s a bit harsh – I can’t believe I’m going to be electronically tagged,” she said.

Does anybody else think this new sentence is a bit harsh? This will not interfere in any way with her working or having a normal life. She just has to be at home every night by midnight. Yes a 47 year old woman may feel a bit put off by having a curfew, but if she wants to keep fighting this, may the court feel that this is a waste of their time and just put her in jail? Maybe she should just accept the punishment, serve the sentence, and move on with life.

Happy Father’s Day!!

First we would like to post an update to a post we made back in November titled Lower Shoe Prices for Who. Earlier this year the Affordable Footwear Act was hoped to become part of the economic stimulus package that went before Congress. Unfortunately it was not included. The AAFA intends to continue to push approval of this act by Congress. Because this bill (H.R. 3934) was introduced in a previous session of Congress, no more action can occur on it. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven’t passed are cleared from the books. This bill has been reintroduced as S. 730: Affordable Footwear Act of 2009. The latest action was on March 26, 2009 in which it was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.The majority of bills and resolutions never make it out of committee, according to govtrack.us.

We have also come upon another interesting bit of news. Back in early February 2009, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that the VAT export rebate for apparel and textiles was being increased from 14% to 15%. It is unknown if this affects the footwear industry, but one would think that it should. The export tax rebate refers to the money the tax authority returns to exporting enterprises for the indirect tax they pay in the production and distribution process. Even if it does not affect footwear, one would think it should affect the price of apparel that is being imported from China. Since the manufacturers are seeing some sort of break in the costs they are incurring to export their goods, couldn’t they possibly pass along a discount to the importers who are purchasing their merchandise? If they could pass along a discount, the retailers should be able to offer some sort of lower price along to the consumers. Rather than seeing any decrease in cost of the merchandise we offer, unfortunately we have seen an increase. We have not passed any of these increase in costs along to our customers at this time, and hope that we do not
have to.

A 47 year old woman in the UK was recently sentenced to 80 hours of community service after she was convicted on two counts of damaging a vehicle and one on failing to provide a breath specimen. She showed up to do her community service in a pair of four inch high heel boots and was told that they were unsuitable for doing the she was to do, such as cleaning graffiti and mending fences. She now has to return back to court later this month for re-sentencing since she refused to wear the protective footwear they felt she needed to wear.

People with certain foot conditions, especially those with high arches, usually find some comfort in wearing shoes with a heel. Depending on how bad the condition is, how high of a heel they need to be comfortable. The woman in question stated that she has “always walked on the balls of my feet. My heels don’t naturally hit the ground. My slippers have a two-and-a-half inch heel. Apparently there are ways to correct the problem but I don’t want to go through that now.”

Many people feel that this woman is making excuses not to serve her sentence and feel that they should just throw her in jail. In her last job she had to sign a disclaimer so she could wear high heels to work. Why can’t they do the same for this? If she is unwilling to sign now so she can do her ‘time’, then they should lock her up. Your thoughts are welcome!