Fashion: A Shoe-In

It is a longtime fashion dictum, verified daily in millions of beauty parlors, that great beauty requires great personal suffering. By that standard, there should be nothing so lovely as a woman’s feet. Through the ages, female toes, insteps and heels have been pummeled, prodded and ultimately propelled into shoes that resemble the human foot purely coincidentally and only occasionally. The pointed-toe look, still so popular last year that a Texas doctor made a fortune amputating little toes, gradually gave way to a rounder toe before blunting off altogether into this year’s square look. Once into the shoes, only the problem of walking on the ever-so-chic, sliver-thin heels remained. This season, a comfortable look in women’s shoes emerged. The low-heeled, easy-fitting shoe is not only in: it seems to be in for the foreseeable future.

Once associated with the 1940s, when lady lieutenants marched to war in sturdy, thick-heeled footwear, the low-heeled shoe is now regarded as both practical and elegant for evening and daytime.

No longer must the working girl, determinedly fashionable even while fighting for her spike-heeled balance on the subway, change at the office to the good old loafers stashed in her desk. No more must suburban housewives, in town for a day’s shopping and a night’s entertainment, lug their evening shoes (concealed in paper bags) around with them until dinner and high-heel time. Says Designer David Evins, a pioneer of the walking shoe: “Women want to get away from the 4-in. needle heel. It has an artificial look. Today there is a feeling of desiring comfort and ease in a shoe.”

As women across the country have testified by snapping up the low-heeled models, the feeling has been around for quite a while. It was only a matter of waiting until fashion caught up with demand.