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Yes, it's a discussion for the ages...but it seems that we keep asking ourselves the question. Lord knows that their are designers out there specializing in combining comfort and style, but plenty exist that simply put comfort at the sake of style. So why do we do it?

Maybe it's the same reason that men don't ask for directions? Truth is, it is a complex question that delves in to the very psyche of being a woman. I for one have joined the millions of working women that don tennis shoes when commuting to work and then slip on my heels when reaching the office. And it never fails, just when I start to join the complacent army of women in tennis shoes, I spy a confident woman, dressed to the nines, wearing sexy three inch heels. My heart sinks and I swear-off wearing sneakers to work for the ump-teenth time.

So for us women, the answer exists among us all. It is truly all about how the women around us make us feel about ourselves...not what the opposite sex thinks. As for the reason they (men) don't ask for directions, well I don't think they even know.

Give Pain the Boot & Know Your Size:

• Designer Shoe Sizing and Conversion Tips: Part 1
• Designer Shoe Sizing and Conversion Tips: Part 2
• Christian Louboutin Sizing Guide
• Manolo Blahnik Sizing & Fit Tips
• How To Shop For Big Feet
• Five Rules Of Healthy Shoe Shopping

It is very rare here at Shoeflair when we ALL instantly fall in love with something that comes through our door. Such is the case with the Moreschi Alba Ankle Boot. For those that aren't familiar with the Moreschi name, you most definitely should be. Moreschi, an Italian based company has its roots as early as 1946 making finely crafted, high-end designer shoes. The brand has stores from Milan to Hong Kong with a flagship located on Madison Ave in New York.

...Back to the Alba. We love the wonderful combination of the faux crocodile pattern and leather platform sole; the contrast of both materials is something to behold and seems to just "work" on the boot. The Alba comes in two colors, Platinum, Purple Passion (picture attached) and retails for $735.00.

You can purchase the Alba online at www.moreschishoes.com or from one of their retail stores.

Over at about.com, we stumbled across a funny, yet revealing little quiz you can take to find out which style of women's dress shoe you are inclined to wear.

The 10 question quiz ranges from such questions regarding your favorite type of dessert (uh, Creme brulee) to your favorite car (Mini Cooper) to your favorite movie (Heathers). While somewhat whimsical, the quiz actually was dead-on with my favorite shoe style: Mary Jane Platform. Unfortunately one of our other writers found herself in the "Comfortable Loafer" category, even though she doesn't own anything without heels.

The quiz takes less than a minute and is a nice little distraction from the daily grind. You can find the quiz here.

In continuing our self-help posts, we thought we would offer a little fit advice for those that succumbed to the skyscraper heel trend that flew through the fashion world this summer.

What to look for when shopping for high-heels:

• The Right Padding: Look for padding under your heels and the balls of your feet to absorb shock and add comfort.
• Materials That Breathe: Choose breathable leather or suede. Avoid synthetics, which can increase perspiration.
• A Little Flexibility: The ideal shoes will flex at the balls of the feet, not at the arches. To test: try on the shoes and raise up on the balls of your feet; the shoes should not bend.
• A Supportive Back: Sling-back shoes or shoes with backs are better than those without. Backless shoes force toes to work too hard, which can create blisters or irritate hammertoes.
• Shock Absorption: Shock-absorbing rubber soles are best if you pound the pavement all day or stand on a hard surface for more than a few hours.

Story courtesy of Health.com

We at here at Shoeflair are constantly are on the look-out for tidbits that help our readers with their shoe shopping experience. With all that we write about the latest and greatest styles from exotic designers the world over--finding the perfect it shoes, only to have them reduce you to a puddle of crying-bandaged goo is something we try to avoid.

With that said, we found this great guide on Health.com that really says it all:

• The later, the better: Your feet swell to their largest size as blood pools in them by the end of the day, which makes this the best time to shop. Go to early, and you risk getting a pair that'll be too tight.
• Get measured every time: Pregnancy, weight gain, and age can cause your feet to lengthen and broaden; your arches can change, too. Also, if one of your feet is bigger than the other, buy shoes in the size of the larger foot.
• Try them on: Sizes differ by brand (and even within the same brand). Ask the salesperson to bring your normal size as well as a half-size larger and smaller.
• Go with your gut: You'll know within minutes if a shoe is right for you. If it's even a bit uncomfortable now, it will feel exponentially worse as time goes on.

Conscious about our current state of the U.S. economy, we have written a bit about how to save money and still get that fabulous pair of shoes you want. While it is still isn't super easy (and you may have to make a few minor concessions), certain online "boutiques" have specialized in offering high-end designer shoes at jaw-dropping prices.

One of those boutiques, Downtowngal Shoes, has existed primarily on eBay with incredible pricing and a huge assortment of previous seasons collections of Ferragamo, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Lilly Pulitzer, Prada, Tod's and many other "top-shelf" designers.

Today, DowntownGal Shoes & More announced the opening of the company’s latest effort to offer men’s and women’s high-end designer shoes at some of the lowest prices found online anywhere. With a fresh new look and edgy branding, Downtowngalshoes.net, was launched with extreme discounts on all Kate Spade designer shoes and Diaper Bags.

Even besting their eBay pricing, Downtown Gal Shoes, is using the site to offer shoes at anywhere between 50% - 80% off retail pricing! We can't wait to see what other goodies show-up on their site over the next few months.

Click here to browse the inventory at Downtowngalshoes.net

These days their are a lot of ways to find what you are looking for out here in cyberspace. Search engines, rss feeds, comparison shopping sites, site aggregators, blah, blah. Trust me when I say, we here at Shoeflair have seen it all. The unfortunate thing about a great deal of these services is that they don't provide the comprehensive collection that we want.

Enter NyMag's aptly named, the "Shop-A-Matic" shoe thingy-ma-bobber. While it lacks price comparison features that one might be used to, it more than makes up for it regarding breadth. Wanna see the latest fall collections? No problem....you will see them all (while sorting on price, color, and type).

We easily found the pair of beautiful Satine Booties by Balenciaga. From here we can go search for better prices.
If you haven't checked out the "Shop-A-Matic" by New York Magazine, check it out here.

A season ago, we were telling you about the BenjiBox for storing your winter wonders in a nice see-through "drawer-box".

With summer on it's way out, its time to start thinking about shoe storage again. While the BenjiBox is great, we found the lovely Shoebby (shoe-bie) that is pretty much the same thing at much less. You still get the same clear, solid plastic construction that is great for stacking, but the decrease in cost is an added bonus.

When compared to the 5 piece set of the BenjiBox, the same set of Shoebby's is around $2-$3 less AND available in the US (the BenjiBox ships from Australia). If you go with the 10 pack, you save around $10 comparatively and you receive a free box.

Starting this month, we are partnering with the folks at FantasticToe to highlight a user "collection". For those that don't know, FantasticToe is a place where shoe lovers of all kinds can go and add "collections"...or a photo gallery of their favorite shoes to share with other shoe lovers.

Collection Owner: ShoeJunkie
Collection Tagline: "When in doubt, buy footwear"

You can see the whole collection at: www.fantastictoe.com . If you click View/Rate on the Favorite shoe, you can page through the whole collection, and read all captions, using Next/Previous buttons.

FantasticToe Says...
"I think this is a great collection for a few reasons:

• It spans a lot of years -- the oldest shoe (the nude pump, back in style this year) is 25 years old, the newest is from this season.
• The collector thinks of it as a collection, she's not just randomly buying shoes. E.g., she's bought shoes all over the world (similar to how someone would collect art or any collectible), part of the reason the shoe is important to her is that it is a memento from a particular city or vacation.
• Lots of different styles are represented, from flats to platforms to slides to pumps
• She's funny! She jokes about buying plaid shoes in spite of an aversion to plaid that dates from her parochial school days; she calls her flats with the gold bug on the front her "Ode to QA" (which is funny if you're a techie), etc.

Cage Heels are showing-up in everyone's end-of-summer/early fall collections. Continuing the skyscraper-heel trend from this summer, "Cage Heels" look fantastic with a pair of tights and a colorful Scoop.

We found 3 of our favorites available now:

• Report Signature Glenna ($214); www.shoes.com
• Klub Niko Edie ($210); www.shopclubniko.com
• Sergio Rossi Cristina ($595); www.sergiorossi.com

In the past we have written a great deal about the fit and sizing of women's designer shoes. Although we have penned much-a-do about U.S. sizing variances between the designers, we haven't provided a clean - generic International Sizing Chart.

For all of you that have written to us on this issue, here ya go!

With the economy the way it is, we wondered why do distinctive designer shoes cost so darn much?! We did a bit of digging and here is what we found:

Location, Location, Location
Its no surprise that lower priced shoes are often manufactured in places like China and Thailand by low-wage workers in massive factories while distinctive brands are often handmade in Europe by seasoned artisans that may produce only 200 pair a day (versus 10,000 pair a day in China). And these seasoned artisans charge around $90 per pair for labor alone compared to sub dollar hourly rates for low-wage workers.

Material
Again, no shocker here. Distinctive designers hand select most of the raw materials used in the crafting of each style of shoe...buying enough leather, fabric and hardware to cover the complete style run (depending on the style 10k - 15k pair) and a bit extra to cover defective or damaged pieces. Additionally, some of these designers spend a great deal on research and design using advanced materials to aid in padding and comfort.
On the flip-side, low-priced shoes are manufactured in masse, therefore all raw materials are contracted at bulk rates (think WalMart) to garner the lowest price possible. It would be nice to think the "designer" of lower-priced brands has control over the quality of raw materials that is purchased, but the truth is, most materials deviate 20% - 30% "off spec" from the original designer mock-up.

The "Must Have" Factor
The buzz we here at Shoeflair rely-on, is in-part, feeding the "designer perception machine" as we call it. The fact that Hollywood covets the small-niche, high-end designer doesn't help the rest of us buying after the shoes have hit the newspapers and trade rags. The reality is that we all want to bring home a little piece of Hollywood glamor to our urban or suburban lives. Retail chains and designer boutiques know this and adjust their prices accordingly. As you can imagine, the mark-up on distinctive designer brands (in-season) is extremely high...in some cases--double the "at-cost" value of the shoe.

As a newcomer to the shoe blogging scene, you can imagine our jubilation at being included in Guy Kawasaki's (former Apple Computer Marketing Genius) news aggregation site, Alltop.com. Calling themselves “highly subjective and judgemental”, Alltop has chosen Shoeflair as one of their top fashion sites on the web. To be included with such blogs we admire as The Manolo, Running With Heels, and The Bag Snob is an honor we are still trying to grasp with just a mere 6 months under our collective belts.

If you have a chance, check out the fashion collection on Alltop. Over the last few months, it has steadily become one of the few sites we check on a daily basis.