Mind Your Shoes

In times past, people paid their shoes no particular attention; all that concerned them was that the feet remain comfortable inside simple, easy shoes... And they rarely noticed that these feet are not merely a means of getting about, but a seat of beauty, in which a woman's beauty shows at its most radiant.

However beautiful a woman may be, that beauty remains lacking and incomplete if the feet are neglected and the shoes do not express the personality of their wearer and reflect her spirit. It has been observed that women's feet are, on the whole, more beautiful than men's — and this, of course, has its reasons: a woman's coquetry, her care for her feet, her fondness for light shoes with many openings, and her inclination to change her shoes twice a day — this inclination in a woman, besides conferring beauty upon her, confers health and vigor as well. That is why we find that women in general, in the beauty and health of their feet, come far closer to perfection than the feet of men; for a man keeps to a single pair of shoes, which he seldom changes all day long, and so, as matters stand, he prevents the feet from breathing and refreshing themselves.

Women are reproached for their care in keeping three secrets: their age, their weight, and the size of their shoes. That is because the measure of beauty for a woman's feet, in the recent past, lay in their smallness...

Today, however, there is no longer any reason to keep this last secret, for the feet of the modern woman are a good deal larger than they were in past ages. The reason is her devotion to athletic life in the open air, and her greater consumption of calcium-bearing foods and vitamins — all of which help the bones to grow and increase in size. And once this defect became general, it was no longer a defect in people's eyes; rather, it became something charming!

The fashions in women's shoes change with every passing year. But it is agreed that the best shoes are the simple ones, and that nothing displays a woman's elegance like her shoes!

A woman, with her fine sensibility and her penetrating eye, knows the particular style in which she feels at ease, and she chooses it even if its fashion has

passed... When the shoe companies decided to abolish the front and back openings of the shoe, they did not succeed in carrying out that decision, because women wore the open shoe for two important reasons:

1 — For comfort while walking.

2 — Because the feet look smaller in an open shoe.

And when a woman sets out to buy her shoes, she chooses them to harmonize with her personality and the kind of feet she has.

Rita Hayworth, before her departure for Europe to marry Aly Khan, provisioned herself with a great number of colored shoes with glittering straps that suit her personality.

And Betty Grable, of the beautiful legs, likes no shoes but those that are colored, their laces winding about her legs up to the calves!

And Katharine Hepburn likes simple flat shoes without heels.

So if you find which of these shoes you wear, you will know which of these ladies you are!