High Heel Shoe blog

Cops hear every story imaginable from drivers stopped for driving drunk. Anything from “I can handle my liquor” to “It’s a short drive home”, I wonder how many have heard that their shoes are why they drove?

In London on July 17, a Scottish businesswoman claimed in court that she decided to drink and drive as she was not able to walk quickly enough in her high heels.

Kyra Ritchie and her husband and friends were staying in town in a hotel to celebrate a friend’s birthday. She argued that she struggled to keep up with a group of friends because of the shoes she was wearing on a night out, she decided to turn back to change them and got behind the wheel of her car to catch up with them.

The court was told that Ritchie was wearing training shoes when she was stopped by the police and found to be well over twice the legal limit.

It being her first offense, she has been banned from driving for 18 months and fined 360 pounds (approximately $550 USD). Although she showed up for court wearing 5 inch heels, she changed out of them before leaving into a pair of sensible boots.

Most everyone is aware that not only the US has been suffering economically.

We have discussed a couple times in the past the Affordable Footwear Act. No, none of the current manufacturers of footwear in the US oppose the Affordable Footwear Act. This is because we do not make the kind of shoes here in the US that are being imported from China to be sold here. But while people here are fighting to eliminate the import fees on footwear being imported from China, China’s Commerce Ministry imposed a 96.5% duty on certain types of nylon imports from the US, more than doubling a preliminary anti-dumping tariff of 36.2% set last October. In the meantime the European Union, Russia and Taiwan were assessed anti-dumping penalties in October’s ranging between 4% to 23.9%.

We would like to explain what an anti-dumping duty is. It is a penalty imposed upon suspiciously low-priced imports, to increase their price in the importing country and so protect local industry from unfair competition. Anti-dumping duties are assessed generally in an amount equal to the difference between the importing country’s FOB price of the goods and (at the time of their importation) the market value of similar goods in the exporting country or other countries.

In Europe the economy is hurting as well. Unlike the US though they have extended import duties of up to 16.5 percent on Chinese shoes.

In December, Brussels extended import duties of up to 16.5 per cent on Chinese shoes, claiming that they unfairly undercut the cost of EU producers.

The European Footwear Alliance, estimates that EU consumers and businesses could lose hundreds of millions of euros through 2011. Meanwhile, the charges could generate euro 1 billion in tariffs, without helping Europe recoup lost manufacturing jobs because shoes from China and Vietnam are now being replaced by imports from other emerging countries.

The charges add between 9.7 percent and 16.5 percent to the import price of Chinese shoes and 10 percent to Vietnamese shoes. The EU says that equates to price jumps less than euro 1.50 for shoes that sell for euro 50, because the product is being imported at a price around euro 9.

So why are we trying to make it better for China to sell their goods here in the US while they are making it even harder for us to sell our goods in China?

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.