With a good of shoes on her feet, women can adjust to anything. And she can do it pain free. No other wearable object wields such power. Women all over the world covet the comfortable shoe. We hunt for them, collect them, store them for next season, keep them long past their due date, and expect them to gloriously update the dreariest of fashion ensembles.
Whether they cost ten dollars or 500, a woman’s shoes say much about her mood, her values, and her personal style. Take Danskos, for example. Now this is a shoe for the active woman who wants support and comfort without having to wear tennis shoes in public. Available in an endless variety of styles, this is the comfortable shoe for the woman who swore she’d never wear comfortable shoes. I know, because I am that person. My feet are wide, yet the styles I tend to like simply do not come in wide widths. All my adult life I’ve suffered in the name of fashion. I’ve worn strappy leather sandals, cork wedges, kitten heels, high-heeled loafers, you name it. But comfortable shoes? Ha! Forget it. I’d rather go barefoot through snow drifts.
Being a girl from the city, I was absolutely floored when I first moved to Indiana. It didn’t take long for me to notice that almost no-one wears stylish, high heeled shoes around here. And those who do are apparently not appreciated for their sense of style. Rather, they’re seen as flashy. And not in a good way. I was in the country now, and I was surrounded by sensible conservatives. I never got compliments on my colorful shoes anymore. I got sideways-glancing looks of disapproval.
To say I stuck out like a sore thumb in the red suede stilettos with the brass grommets that I like to wear with my distressed jeans is a gross understatement. Suddenly, dismayed to find there was nowhere to wear all my fun shoes, I packed them up (along with my single girl outfits) and my sassy, single girl attitude. I wasn’t a single girl who could spend half her paycheck if she wanted to on handbags and shoes anymore. I was married. Thoroughly married. To a wonderful man who appreciates the wisdom of the “comfortable shoe-wearing girl”.
And so it was, on the day my wonderful new husband took me out to Main Street in search of sensible walking shoes, that I found my first pair of this Dansko footwear. Before we entered the store, I told him that I was was determined to be sensible. Inside, I felt sad. I felt sure that pleasing my husband meant I would have to go home with a truly hideous pair of walking shoes. Shoes made for seniors in personal care homes. Shoes made for those with multiple orthopedic complaints. What I found that day was like an epiphany. There they were – cherry red Mary Janes, with just a bit of a heel, and a buckle strap across the bridge of the foot that once in place, would stay that way. Just looking down on these darlings makes me smile! These are seriously sweet shoes! They rock as you walk! The sole is designed to roll forward as you step onto the ball of your foot, then rock gently back as your weight shifts to the other foot. What ingenious engineering.
I have clocked countless hours in my Danskos. I wore them through two pregnancies – back-to-back and with only three months between. I never, not once, complained of lower back pain, and I was on my feet a lot. My knees hurt a bit, but I’d never blame the Danskos for that. I blamed the babies. My feet never felt better. Sure, the toes are round. “All the better for wiggle room, my dear”, says the sensible woman my husband would like me to be. And in my red Dansko Mary Janes, I know he smiles with pride, walking with his cool-yet-sensible wife, hand in hand down the nature paths and along Main Street in quaint little main-street Indiana.
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