High Heel Shoe blog

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.

It is said that sagging or drooping of breasts is a natural, inevitable process that happens to all women at some point in their life, except those with fairly small breasts. It is also believed that pregnancy and losing weight are additional reasons. Thousands of women every year undergo plastic surgery to have breast lifts done, but surgery results are not permanent since the skin and ligaments will stretch again eventually.

Constant or prolonged sitting, which most of us do, causes the muscles on the fronts of the hips to become short and tight. Also the glutes — or butt muscles — actually forget how to contract. The combination of tight muscles on the front of the hips and weak muscles on the backside causes the pelvis to tilt forward. This pushes the lower abdomen outward, making the belly pooch out. Another belly pooch culprit: high heels. “High-fashion shoes not only contribute to your pooch, but again, leave you less perky up top as well”, according to Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., fitness advisor for Women’s Health. “wearing high heels can result in saggy breasts. Heels make your ankle muscles tight. This leads to tighter muscles all the way up your legs to your lower back. And a tight lower back causes you to compensate by hunching forward even more, so your sag worsens”.

So should you throw out your heels? Many women ‘have’ to wear them for work and therefore cannot get away from them. But there are a few things you can do to help. Always sit as tall as you can, exercise daily, eat healthy and stretch your chest. You can also try to minimize the amount of time wearing heels. Wear a pair of flats to work, change out into heels at work, and change back into flats for the commute home. Women also just wear them to try and look more appealing, but in the long run can they be doing more harm than good?

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.