4 myths about flat shoes

A woman’s passionate love affair with high heels is a storied romance, and I feel that mine is about to come to an end – at least, for the time being.

My love affair with high heels began at age 14, when I realized that adding a few more inches to my diminutive height gave my teenage self-esteem a much-needed boost. Although I stopped wearing heels in college, I eventually started collecting them the moment I entered the world of fashion blogging. If you look at photos of the best fashion bloggers, you’ll notice that hardly any of them complement their outfits with flats. They almost always go for platforms and wedges, and who can blame them? They look so confident and stylish in their 5-inch heels, and when you see how amazing a real person can look in certain shoe styles, it makes you want to own the same pair so that you too can look just as stunning.

But here’s something I’ve never admitted to myself until now: feelings of confidence and stylishness aside, I kind of hate wearing heels. They make me walk very slowly, either from the pain caused by my brand new blisters or because I worry about tripping and breaking my neck.  Heels make me want to spend the entire evening sitting down because standing up to socialize makes pain radiate across my arches. Heels make my boyfriend hate me because I end up demanding a massage to soothe my tortured soles at the end of the day.

I’ve resisted wearing flat shoes for a long time because they don’t have the same oomph as a gorgeous pair of heels. But I’m tired of suffering for the fashion, and I refuse to let people like Christian Louboutin make me feel bad for choosing comfort over a towering pair of heels. Although high heels may bring confidence, flats bring freedom from pain.

Here are some more myths that have kept me from wearing flats and why I think they aren’t true:

1. Flats make you a lazy dresser

There was once a time when I would only wear flats if I can’t be bothered to dress up, which made me associate wearing flats with being lazy and unstylish. But being lazy is a lot less about the flats than it is about the effort you put in for the rest of your appearance. No one could ever accuse you of being lazy if you wear a chic peep-toe flat with a well-tailored blazer, watercolor silk top, and scalloped shorts. It’s very easy to build stylish outfits around flat shoes, especially when your flats are already cute to begin with.

2. Flats are unfashionable

You only need to go to a mall to realize that today’s flat shoes are not your grandma’s flats. Not only are celebrities and off-duty models rocking ballet flats and brogues like nobody’s business; flat shoes are even starting to appear on runways. Balenciaga creative director Nicholas Ghesquière designed flat shoes for his spring-summer 2011 collection because Gisele Bundchen refused to wear his signature 4.5-inch heels at his Paris show.  When I buy flats, I look for interesting details like buckles, red piping, or faux snakeskin to keep things exciting and far from unfashionable.

3. Men think flats are unsexy

Wearing heels is supposed to change your height, leg appearance and posture in a way that makes you more attractive to men. Take away the heels and this illusion disappears, making you less appealing to the opposite sex. Or does it? A study from Northumbria University discovered that men can’t actually tell if a woman is wearing heels or flats unless the shoe itself is visible. Neither shoe style makes one more attractive or sexier to the oblivious opposite sex.

4. Flats make short girls look shorter

Being barely 5 feet tall is what made me turn to heels in the first place. But now that I’m becoming more comfortable about my body, I realize that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my height, and that I don’t like wearing heels just to look taller. So I discovered a fool-proof formula to elongate my leg line without heels: ballet flats or loafers that end an inch below my toes, and shorts or a dress that ends at my mid-thigh.  Try it sometime if you’re worried about looking too short without heels.

I’m definitely not retiring my wedges and platforms forever, but I sure miss walking without being hounded by blisters, arch pain and the fear of spraining my ankle. Flats make me feel good, and I don’t regret giving my feet a long break from high heels.