KEY POINTS:
Cutesy ballet flats are out and Crocs are dead in the water - if the fashion police are right.
Latest European trends mean dangerously spiky stilettos coupled with super-high platforms are hitting the high street.
Known as "limo heels", because you can't be expected to stumble more than a few steps into a nightclub in heels up to 17cm high, they are filling fasionable shoe boutiques.
Average heel height is 10 cm, offset in many cases by a large platform so the shoe doesn't feel so high.
Heels are thin, a spiky look once relegated to the sex shop.
While shoe buyers and fashionistas welcome glamour heels bringing "sexy" back to the feet of Kiwi women, health professionals urge caution.
Podiatrist Caron Orelowitz of Remuera Health and Fitness Centre said high heels were "biomechanically and orthopedically unsound".
They led to knee and back complaints, injuries through falls, shortened calf muscles and "an awkward, unnatural gait".
Women who still wanted heels should choose styles with thicker soles for absorbing shock, squared-off toes and chunkier heels - not stilettos, or limit the time in skyscrapers.
Orelowitz said it was better to alternate between high and low-heeled shoes to prevent the Achilles tendon from tightening.
Chiropractor Simon Kelly, of Mt Eden Chiropractic, said high heels forced the pelvis forward, eventually increasing the lower back curve, and rolling the neck and shoulders forward.
"They might make for good-looking calves, but they can lead to a breakdown in posture, and lead to muscular and neurological problems, such as headaches, back and shoulder pain."
Ideally, women shouldn't wear high heels at all.
"But who am I to tell a female what shoes to wear? They will still wear what they want."
Chi chi shoe store owner Louise Stringer, who is never seen without her heels, describes the look as "totally gorgeous".
"They are sexy no matter what you wear them with."
She has worn heels for 25 years but doubted the trend would catch on with the majority of Kiwi women, who favoured a more practical look.
WALKING THE WALK
9am: I slip into my $195, size six Daniella Michelle pumps from Ponsonby shoe store chi chi, for a day on skyscrapers. These stylish snakeskin stilletos are more than 10cm high, which should be a totter, if not a walk, in the park. Overseas, the glitterati wear "limo heels" up to 17cm high. How hard can it be?
9.30am: My first "walk"- just to the kitchen. I'm sure I look like a demented peacock and my toes don't like being squished. I've gone up in the glamour stakes, at least when standing still, and as the minutes pass, these puppies almost feel comfortable.
10am: My female colleagues fawn over my new footwear, and I feel elongated and sexy. Ten extra centimetres doesn't make me supermodel material, but that click clack of stillettos on lino brings a strange feeling of power.
11.30am: I brave the outside world, only a couple of blocks but a challenge. I've yet to master looking as though it's a breeze.
1pm: The words of the assistant at chi chi haunt me. "Aren't you brave to wear those the whole day without breaking them in?" Brave, indeed. After tottering a few blocks at half my normal speed and twice the volume, my right heel is killing me. A quick peek reveals a lovely fresh blister.
3pm: Just stepping into the lift nearly ends in disaster, I'd never noticed that tiny gap before - just big enough for a pencil thin heel. But driving is surprisingly easy.
3.30pm A male motorist in a late-model BMW toots his horn appreciatively as I ease out of my vehicle. It's possible he was tooting at the wobbly blonde who looked as though she might fall but I'm sticking to the first story.
5pm: I'm safely back in the office, the lovely shoes tucked under the desk. A plaster has remedied the blister and I'm thinking these shoes are comfortable. I'd wear them again. As long as I didn't have too far to walk.
