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.

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.

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?