What Your Shoes Say About You

Women: Wear This, Damage Your Career?
You may consider those colorful and comfortable flip-flops to be an integral part of your wardrobe, but women should beware! Not only can they lead to heel pain and inflammation, but also they can cause career pain.

Flip-flops send the boss the message that you're feeling relaxed and on vacation. The office isn't a day at the beach, and your feet shouldn't look like they would rather be strolling on sand instead of walking the corporate corridors.

In an online survey conducted for retailers Old Navy and Gap, flip-flops were No. 1 on a list of wardrobe items that college and high school students planned to wear to work this summer with 31 percent of women saying flip-flops were the single "must have" clothing item for work.

It doesn't have to be just the bright pink rubber version to impact your image negatively at work. Any sandal-type shoe with a flat sole and a Y-shaped strap that passes between the toes are generally not appropriate for the office.

"Shoes convey the mood of a woman. Wearing flip-flops conveys the mood that you are relaxed and on vacation," Meghan Cleary, a style commentator who wrote the book "The Perfect Fit : What Your Shoes Say About You," told Reuters. "That's not a good message in the office."

Cleary says the kind of shoes you wear says something about who you are. In her book, "The Perfect Fit," she identifies three basic shoe personality types:

Towering Heights: Women who favor stilettos, straps and heels like being the center of attention and very much enjoy it when others look at them. They like to get dressed up and hear the click-click-click of their heels on the pavement.

On-the-Go: Designer sneakers, pointy skimmers and ballet flats are the shoes of choice. They are favored by active, on-the-go women.

Down-to-Earth: Call them the flip-flop fashionistas! Their flip-flops and sandals show they are mellow and grounded, believing firmly in their inner beauty.

If sending the wrong image in the office isn't enough to get you to stop wearing flip-flops to work, consider this: Flip-flops are bad for your feet since they provide no support to the arch or heel and can cause inflammation. In fact, physicians at the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons point to flip-flops as the primary reason teens and young adults have heel pain.
source: Netscape.com


The Perfect Fit: What Your Shoes Say About You
by Meghan Cleary

Meghan Cleary is a fashion writer and shoe expert whose work has appeared in Marie Claire, Life & Style Weekly, Time Out New York, Financial Times Style Section, JCREPORT, and other fashion-industry publications. She has appeared on the TODAY show, MSNBC, Good Day LA and Good Day NY, EXTRA! and Soaptalk, and was the recurring shoe expert on WE Network's Savvy. Meghan lives and shops for shoes in New York City's West Village.

Sydney VanDyke is a Delaware-based illustrator whose work has appeared in publications such as Lucky, Glamour, and Italian Vogue.

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