7 Life-Changing Hacks to Make Your Shoes More Comfortable Our idea of a love-hate relationship? Think about it: You obsess over the beauty of the perfect lace-up pump and squeal with glee when you find a killer pair on sale, but these sources of delight are simultaneously instruments of pain. Throbbing feet and stinging blisters, anyone? Since we’re not giving up our footwear addiction anytime soon, we figured we’d find solutions to lessen the pain our favorite shoes inflict. Scroll down for seven hacks to make your life just a little bit easier. Sign up for our newsletter and receive exclusive stories, breaking news, sale alerts and much more straight to your inbox!We are all excited for the impending warm weather, ready to break out our favorite sandals at the first sign of 65 degrees. But with new sandals, worn around town, in the sweating sun, that too means the dreaded blister. Potentially the worst part of summer, always popping up in the most terrible spots and taking days to heal.
Blister band-aids, anti-blister sticks, wearing shoes at home for hours to break them in, none of these remedies come close to solving the problem. According to an article on NBC News, the best way to prevent blister is, drumroll please ….. Its super cheap and can be found at virtually any drug store. Runners who tape up the areas that are usually affected came out unscathed! Will you try this trick in the coming weeks? Have any other good foot-saving techniques you love! – Ashley, Intern at the Studio Remix your shoe collection in these cool black suede shoes in floral embroidery featuring a chunky sole. SGD 20 up to 8 days Tracked express delivery options available 350 new products added each weekChloe Green, shoe entrepreneur and daughter of retail magnate Philip Green was out on the town last night at plush Mayfair eaterie, Nobu Berkeley. So far, so usual. However, in a departure for the stiletto loving 21 year-old, this time she was wearing flats!
But while she may not have been sporting her signature green-soled stilettos, she still held up the family name sporting a green tote. Not so well heeled: Vertiginous heel designer, Chloe Green was spotted out on the town last night wearing a pair of sneakers Chloe launched her own CJG (Chloe Jade Green) line of vertiginous heels at Topshop last month, some of which tower at six inches high! And she has since been promoting them with gusto, rarely being seen without a pair of heels sporting her signature green sole. It's certainly paid off. At least three of the 14 styles stocked at Topshop and on Green's own website have sold out already. Six inches is pretty tall though and Green even revealed that her friend and fellow CJG fan Kate Moss, had mentioned that they were quite high. So perhaps it's not surprising that the retail heiress needs the odd night off for the balls of her feet to recover.Even she can't wear her heels all of the time!Perhaps she's taken heed of Kate Moss' words as Green's AW12 collection due to launch later this year will actually feature a range of flatties.
The soles will still be green though.CHLOE GREEN'S CJG SHOE COLLECTION LYDIA Cage Zip Wedges £165.00 and Stud Back Peeptoe Court Shoes £115.00 MISHA Slingback Mega Wedges £130.00 and TIGER LILY Scoop Side Booties £150.00 Stud Back Peeptoe Court Shoes £115.00 and MISHA Slingback Mega Wedges £130.00 BELLA BEA Lazercut Wood Wedges £150.00 and LOUISA Chain Booties £175.00 LOUISA Chain Booties £175.00 and LADY MAMA Crystal Booties £175.00 The Chloe Jade Green collection is now available to buyThis week Liz Jones tries out the latest footwear trend: flatforms, but will she fall flat on her face? She made the nylon backpack fashionable in the early Nineties and sent an entire collection made from lace down the catwalk in 2008, sparking a trend which is still filling rails on the High Street today. And now Miuccia Prada, creative head of the brand that is about to celebrate its 100th birthday, has given us the strangest trend of all: the flatform. This very high shoe looks like a building block, something as big and solid as Ayers Rock.
If someone threw you into the Thames wearing a pair of these babies, you would undoubtedly sink to the bottom. The flatform is not to be confused with the wedge, which has an incline, tipping the foot at a slight angle, or the platform, which generally has a stubby toe and a high heel. No, as its name suggests flatforms are very flat — like Norfolk — and are also very, very high. These shoes were first seen on the catwalk at Prada last September: towering Japanese geisha-girl platforms worn with colourful soft leather Tabi socks (the leather sock effect was also seen at Victoria Beckham). These monoliths cost £830, are covered in daisies, and were featured in Vogue last month as the last word in edgy shoes-as-art form. But, of course, even Ms Prada got the idea for these shoes from somewhere else: undoubtedly in this case from David Bowie, who wore a pair of red patent flatforms as long ago as 1973 (in fact, these flatforms can be seen in the excellent exhibition, David Bowie Is, at the V&A museum).
So, we understand that they are fashionable. We understand they make the wearer extremely tall. But the key question is, can you walk in them? Unlike summer’s alternative hot shoe, the pointy, feminine high stiletto, best executed in white or sugary pink, these shoes are very heavy, which gives the wearer a rather ungainly gait, with knees that are permanently bent. The flatforms worn by Japanese geishas are called geta and are a cross between clogs and flip-flops Because of the weight and rigidity of the flatform, the foot has to land flat on the ground, not heel or toe first, which means you will walk and sound like an elephant. The biggest problem comes when you encounter uneven ground, which means the whole foot can go over, like a domino, significantly increasing your risk of twisting your ankle. All in all, the whole experience is a strain on the old knee joints, although the ball of the foot does not feel the pain you get after a day in high heels. More from Liz Jones for The Mail on Sunday...
LIZ JONES: Gwynnie's daft diet of drinking only goat's milk for eight days won’t do her (or the goats) any good I have seen racier episodes of Pingu: LIZ JONES tells how she felt patronised by Fifty Shades Darker LIZ JONES: Don't fret, Kylie, successful women like us NEVER find love LIZ JONES: Something vital has vanished from TV - grubby reality LIZ JONES: Helen Mirren knew feminism's real secret - have the last laugh The bra's the star: Chilly? Adored by the A-list, now 'bra-lets' are bringing underwear out into the open LIZ JONES: So who will be Strictly's next tubby villain with a rigor mortis smile - Philip Green? What secrets are tucked inside your genes? Liz Jones investigates whether her problems are caused by nature or nurture LIZ JONES: It's all over for me and my boyfriend after he kidnapped my cat Prudence After a day in my Prada flatforms, my shins felt very painful, too, due to the weight and the strange, creeping gait I developed.
Imagine comedian Dick Emery after a very long, hard day, and that was me.I think the flatform is a shoe exclusively for the young (the Prada Daisy flatforms were worn by 14-year-old movie actress Elle Fanning at the premiere of Breaking Dawn last November). But if you must wear a flatform, avoid an over-long trouser or skirt, because you will look as though you are on castors. Instead, flatforms look best with a mini skirt, shorts, or at least a cropped cigarette pant. At Topshop last week, where I tried on its extensive range, young shoppers told me the reason they love the shoes is they make their legs look ultra, ultra thin. I ventured, to be met by blank stares. These girls are too young to have heard of Popeye.There are a few less vertiginous flatforms around, such as the ones seen here (right) from Asos. And a less skyscraperish design comes from Louboutin, featuring an ankle strap and fashioned from raffia and studded leather for £395 — as the shoe is flat, though, no one will see your trademark red leather sole, which is a shame, but that’s a price you have to pay to be up-to-the-minute.
I love, too, the flatform from Celine: it’s not too high, has a faux furry lining, and is as comfy as a pair of slides or Birkenstocks. Add a pair of shocking pink leather socks with a separate compartment for your big toe, and people will think you are wearing Prada — if you care about such things. Frankly, I’m just happy with anything that doesn’t give me a blister. Fendi Hydra Flatforms from My Theresa £280 Red suede, £39.99, New Look I knew things were bad over at French Connection. The label posted a £10.5 million pre-tax loss to January 31, with sales falling by 8 per cent. But I didn’t know they were this bad.Sweatshirts with strange sheer sleeves. If you are a fashion-conscious twentysomething, the sort this brand, in its heyday, used to attract, then you would rather set fire to these things than wear them. Jackets that are just old-fashioned. Dreadful knitwear that feels dated and synthetic. While French Connection was once aspirational, it now feels like the sort of place where trends come to die.
Its founder, Stephen Marks, knows things have to change, and has announced a new design team and staff training. But this brand should be on life support. The staff are sweet, Eastern European and helpful, struggling to find me a smart outfit for a wedding, taking armfuls of clothes down to the empty row of changing rooms (I was the only customer on a Thursday afternoon), but there is so much wrong here I barely know where to start; not least the disinterested man at the till who was more intent on stock taking than serving me. These shops should be staffed with young, leggy beauties, not an extra from The Office. Even the prices are delusional: £175 for a sequined shift dress and a floral synthetic shirt dress is £89. There is a stiff trench coat that feels like something Next did in the Eighties. Everything is made in Romania, and creates static. I think the brand lost its way after its FCUK marketing campaign backfired. French Connection doesn’t seem to know who its customer is: is she a fiftysomething solicitor who wants a navy shift dress and cream jacket, or a twentysomething student who wants floral shorts?