Designer Shoes

Archive for July, 2009

Having covered flats, points, boots and sandals, I decided to quiz my panel of men about what they thought a preference for trainers said about a woman’s personality. Behold the findings!

Trainers are normally heard-wearing and practical – apparently like the people that wear them, I was informed by my panel!  Often designed for comfort, durability or to fulfill a particular function (like running a marathon), the panel decided that trainers appeal to women to whom expensive fashion statements and designer shoes mean little or nothing.

“Obviously everybody needs some trainers for the gym or going on a walk and stuff, but if a woman prefers wearing trainers to other shoes it’s probably because she’s not so bothered about looking stylish…which can be a good thing!”

Apparently if a women is neither working out nor doing the gardening, she should consider wearing something more “stylish” if she wants to impress the majority of guys on my panel. However, there were a few of them that stood their ground and decided that they actually preferred women in trainers because it suggests “…a casual, relaxed personality; not obsessed with her looks”. This minority also agreed amongst themselves that women in trainers were more fun because they could do anything in trainers, where some activities are just unsuitable for boots, heels and the like.

Personally, I think it entirely depends of the kind of trainer and the rest of the woman’s style; trainers look odd with ball gowns, but good with jeans. Heels, in my opinion, work the other way round entirely; wearing heels with jeans reminds me of the women you see at 04:00 on a Saturday morning, clinging desperately to their pot-bellied husband as they totter home from Oceana.

However, the overall response was that trainers are “for women who prefer gardening and books to men”. Sorry Paula Radcliffe.

After the success of boots in the “What Do Your Designer Shoes Say About You?” saga, I was very interested to hear what sandals and flip-flops communicate about a woman’s personality. Although I don’t wear open sandals very often, I like them on other people and was intrigued to discover whether this was the case for my panel of guys.

The word the guys associated most with sandals and flip-flops was “casual”. They decided that they suggest easy-going and fun women who don’t mind getting their feet dirty. As obvious as the latter point was, the former was quite interesting and I’d like to add that open sandals probably take a little bit of confidence to wear, when worn in general rather than just on the beach or in the park. When I put this point to the guys, they suggested that maybe the more revealing the sandal, the more confident the person – in a similar way to revealing clothing.

Be be fair to the guys, their point about women not minding “getting their feet dirty” clearly meant more than the very obvious. Sandals suggest that somebody isn’t hung-up about cleanliness to an obsessive degree – which is something to bear in mind I suppose!

The panel was split over gladiator sandals; half liked them and half thought they were “just another fad”. Nobody seemed to have a problem with flip-flops, though the panel was unified in their dislike of women (and men) that continue to wear flip-flops in winter months; saying that they were probably over-confident to the point of arrogance. “Everybody knows their feet are freezing [cold] and wet” exclaimed one particularly enraged panelist; “…they’re just showing off to try to prove some ridiculous point, but nobody knows what it is!” I suggested that perhaps these people think blue feet are sexy, but the panel weren’t having any of it so we called it a day there!

Next time: what do trainers say about a woman?

In the last post my male-only panel admitted that they found pointed-shoes either an intimidating display from self-interested women, or a sad attempt to fit into a pre-conceived idea of what looks “good” by women desperate to be liked. Today we find out what they thought of women wearing boots.

Be they sexy stiletto-heeled designer pieces or hard-rocking goth-extravaganzas, boots tend can be very attention-grabbing and statement-making. Hence my panel of men said they considered boot-wearers to be confident, hard to intimidate and secure in their style. I would like to add to this that, conversely, boot-wearing women may actually be shy, easily-intimidated people that are trying to look confident by drawing attention to themselves. Whichever is the case, wearing boots does take at least a small leap of faith that unifies boot-wearers as brave people; people that aren’t afraid to be different, aren’t afraid to draw attention to themselves and aren’t afraid to fall and break their heels!

The general reaction to boots was a positive one from my testosterone-fueled panel who agreed (almost to a man) that most boots are sexy, attention grabbing and – interestingly – that they suggest a women is probably single! When I pursued this point it transpired that the guys considered that women who wear boots “are doing it to look attractive to men”, hence it is more likely that they are single.

So boots was a big thumbs up! I do wonder what they’d say to pointed-toed boots…maybe I’ll ask them in future weeks, but next time we look at sandals, flip-flops and trainers in this guide to What Do Your Designer Shoes Say About You?

Hello and welcome to the second installment of “What Do Your Shoes Say About You?” – where I reveal the results of asking a collection of men what they think a woman’s preferred shoe-type says about her personality. Last time we discovered that flat, round-toed shoe are un-intimidating and suggest a nicer, more interesting personality than other shoe-types. So what do they think to pointed-toed shoes?

Pointed-toed shoes, by contrast, probably indicate that the wearer would be “more than happy to step on you as they climb the social ladder” – and it would hurt too! The guys I asked decided that most the time pointed shoes either look great or terrible – rarely anything inbetween. Women whose shoes look great, they decided, probably spent a long time choosing their shoes, which suggests that their looks are important to them. Whilst they may be quite strong, confident and independent people, they are possibly also the kind of person that has so little else going on in their head that they can afford to spend that much time choosing shoes.

Awful-looking pointed shoes, on the other hand, suggest the wearer has no idea what looks good on them and is wearing pointed shoes only because they’ve seen other people doing it and have cluelessly jumped on the bandwagon. The men I questioned decided that these women are probably “quite shallow”, “fickle” and “desperate to be liked”; apparently to the extent that they’re rather wear what they think other people will like, even when they have no idea whether it looks good or bad. The guys were not impressed by such people – which serves as quite the warning! If you’re going to wear pointed shoes, make sure they look good!

Forgive me for generalising, but women like shoes. Sure not all women like shoes and women that do like shoes definitely don’t like all shoes, but I think it’s safe to say that – in general – women like shoes.

Since they spend so much time and money buying shoes, I therefore conclude that a woman’s choice of shoes must, in some way, provide some kind of insight into her personality and psychology. After all, if I spent that much of my time doing something I’m pretty sure that my personality would be reflected in the finished product, at least to some extent! So I put the question to some men and put the findings together into a series of posts entitled “What Do Your Shoes Say About You?” Please note that this is what your shoes actually say about you to these men, not what you THINK they say about you to men! Since context has a huge effect on interpretation (i.e. wearing trainers to a posh ball says something very different to wearing them in the park), the question was a context-removed enquiry into what a woman’s preferred type of shoes communicates about her personality.

Flat, round-toed shoes like pumps are very commonplace these days. They’re comfortable, easy to come by and come in a huge range of colours and styles that probably makes choosing a pair very easy or very hard. They men on my panel decided that flat shoes reflect a relaxed personality; certain nonchalance towards shoes that suggests the wearer has a more interesting personality than women who are willing to dedicate hours of cognition to a choice of shoes. The guys also decided that women that prefer flat, round-toed shoes were less intimidating than women that preferred pointed shoes or heels and that they were probably “nicer people that are less likely to step on you on their way to career success”. Ho hum!

Interesting to say the least! Next time we’ll look into what men think pointed evening shoes…