Save Your Soles: How to Find Stylish, Comfortable Shoes
Uncomfortable shoes? We’re OVER IT.
And thankfully, we’re living in a time when comfortable shoes no longer have to look like . . . well, “comfort shoes.”
This week, Natalie answers a question she hears from almost EVERY client: “Where can I find shoes that are actually stylish AND comfortable?”
Before we get to the brands, we’re going Cinderella on your feet. Natalie breaks down why your actual shoe size, arch, foot shape, and even what you’re asking the shoe to DO all matter when finding your perfect fit. Then, she shares some of her favorite brands that are proving we no longer have to choose between happy feet and great style.
Let’s save those soles!
Episode Notes & Resources:
See and shop our Shoe Catalog with recommended picks and brands, updated seasonally
Explore this BU Style article for shoe terminology, fit tips, shoe shapes, materials, care, and our curated recommendations: Step Into Style: The Complete Shoe Guide for Modern Women
Listen to episode 36, “Finding Your ‘Sole’Mate” for help finding the shoe styles you need.
Listen to episode 39, “Shoe Care & Repair for Lasting Wear,” for tips on protecting your shoes and helping your favorites last longer.
Listen to the podcast episode with Nomasei, one of our featured episode brands.
Keep track of YOUR shoe aces: Inside BU Style Circle, members can record their go-to brands and sizes for both shoes and clothing, reference size guides, and keep the information that makes future shopping easier all in one place. Use code BUCIRCLE for one month off your subscription.
Submit style questions you’d like answered in a future Wear Who You Are episode
Read the full & Raw Episode transcript:
[00:00]
Hello everyone, and welcome to another Wear Who You Are Wednesday. We're gonna do a Nat Chat today where I answer your questions, and hopefully they're questions that a lot of you have. Today's I know is one for sure. It's one I get with every single client. I would say probably 100% every single client that I meet with.
So this one comes from Lindsay in NYC. She says, “I'm over uncomfortable shoes. What are some stylish and comfortable shoe brands or tips?”
As I said, I hear this all the time. There is a lot of demand for comfortable shoes that don't look like, you know, comfort shoes. You know what I mean? I call them a little geriatric, if you will.
So I'm gonna share specific brands later in the episode, but first I want to start with some tips and some thoughts because it's really like a Cinderella slipper situation, where one thing that's comfortable for one person may not be for another person because we all have different shoe shapes, shoe considerations, different foot issues, if you will, pun intended.
[01:00]
So there's so many times that you may have somebody tell you, “My gosh, this is the most comfortable shoe brand ever.” And then you try it, and it's not comfortable to you.
So I'm gonna give some tips building up to brands so that way you can understand some considerations that you may have or, quite frankly, that I would encourage you to ask specific sales associates at a shoe store. Go to a specialty shoe store or somewhere where you have a good associate, or use the online chat for specific brands because a lot of the brands I'm gonna give you later will have very good customer service where they really understand their product, what type of foot that it fits, and so on and so on.
So I don't want you to punish your feet anymore. And we are in a world where, particularly post-pandemic, a lot of shoe brands are making comfortable shoes that are designed by podiatrists, that take all the things that we need into consideration, and they're also cutie cute. So yay, what a time to be alive.
[02:00]
So first I'm gonna start with my tips, as I said. The first one is to know your size. Quite frankly, many of us are simply just wearing the wrong size shoe.
So remember when we were in elementary school and you used to go and, like, I remember going to JCPenney's and I would get so excited for that shiny metal shoe-measuring device. And you'd go every year, they would measure your foot so you knew exactly what shoe size you were wearing.
That doesn't really happen anymore. And I find it to be just kind of a funny phenomenon. Like, when did that stop? And it does happen in some places, but in general, you walk into a department store and they're not, like, getting out the metal thing and measuring your shoe, which may be helpful.
I mean, I know I went up a half a shoe size in the last five-ish years. I don't know why, if my feet spread because I walked more, I don't know. But I know that I went a half size up recently.
[03:00]
So I think a lot of times we're just wearing the wrong size shoe. So here's how you're gonna measure it. You can either, as I said, get it done professionally. Some brands or shoe places offer that.
If you don't have access to that or don't really want to bother, you can pause this now if you want to do the activity together. Otherwise, you can come back to it. And it's a very simple exercise.
You will need a piece of paper, a pen or a pencil, and a ruler or measuring tape. I think we all have that at home.
So what you're gonna do is you're gonna place the piece of paper on a flat surface and stand on it with your weight evenly distributed. Then you're gonna trace your foot, both of your feet. Hold the pen or pencil straight up, trace around it. If possible, and you have someone around, have them trace it for you so that way your feet can stay evenly distributed. And this will help keep the measurement more accurate. If you don't have someone, no problem.
[04:00]
Then next you're gonna use your ruler and measure the length of your foot from the tip of the toe to the heel. That's gonna be your foot-length measurement.
Then you're gonna measure the width of it, and you're gonna find the widest part of that sketch, of that tracing, and measure it there. That's gonna tell you if you're generally regular width, narrow, or wide width.
You're gonna do that on the other foot too. Why? Because generally most of us have one foot that's larger than the other. Then you know which foot is larger, and then you're gonna use the measurements from your bigger foot to size your shoe.
Now, these measurements will generally be something that you can use, particularly if you're shopping online, to look at shoe sizes. They'll often have a measurement guide, which I generally find to be much more accurate than clothing measurement guides.
So hopefully there's step one. So if you're having shoe issues, let's all do a foot-size check.
[05:00]
Second thing is to actually know your arches. So we all have different arches, arch heights, arch structure, and this makes a difference on what types of shoes are best for you.
If you don't know what kind of arch you have, we have another activity. So this is the activity episode.
So what you're gonna do for this one is get either a piece of cardboard or some sort of dark paper, or you can, quite frankly, just go outside on a nice day on a cement sidewalk. But you're gonna wet the bottom of your foot and then imprint it on either this cardboard or the cement.
If you can see almost your entire print on the foot and there's no gaps in it, then you likely have a lower arch. If you see just a very narrow strip connecting your heel to the ball of your foot, or maybe no connection at all, then you have a higher arch. If you're somewhere in between, then you have a neutral arch.
Pretty cool trick, right?
[06:00]
So cool and all. And what do you actually do with that?
So if you have higher arches, your foot tends to be more rigid and may not absorb shock as well. I have relatively high arches, and so I always find the balls of my feet to be, like, killing me.
I also, fun fact, have very tiny feet for how tall I am. I'm a seven now, was a six and a half, as I noted, and I'm five foot nine. So I just feel like there's, like, a lot going on to the balls of my feet and the heel.
Anyway, so I like to have a little more cushioning and flexibility, to have a softer midsole, and to have something kind of cushioning my whole foot with my higher arches.
If you have neutral arches, then congratulations, your foot generally has a little bit more of an even weight distribution, and so you may have a little more flexibility in what works for you.
[07:00]
If you have really low arches, you may have feet that turn inward or pronate, if you've ever done one of those running tests and they talk about if you have, you know, kind of a regular stride or pronating. Pronating is when it rolls in as you walk.
So you may need more stability or structure, a firmer midsole, good arch support, and maybe a secure heel to keep your foot from moving around as much.
I'm gonna put a huge, huge asterisk disclaimer on all of this because we are talking general guidelines. I'm not diagnosing your feet. You are not self-diagnosing your feet. If you have pain or an actual foot condition, consult your podiatrist or some qualified medical professional to help you with other things. Maybe you will get, you know, custom insoles that they'll recommend or something else.
But this is just a guideline to help you find more comfortable shoes.
So if you read something on a box, it just says it has good arch support, you still want to try the shoe on, pay attention to where the arch actually hits on your foot.
[08:00]
Does it line up with your arches? Does it cushion the foot all around you? So that's where sometimes maybe something's in the right size, but the structure of the shoe just doesn't work for you.
The next tip I have is to generally know your foot shape. Two people can wear the exact same size shoe, have the exact same arch type, and still need a completely different shoe.
You may need a different toe box because you have, you know, wider toes or your second toe is longer than the other. I always see these photos on the internet or these different memes that are telling you, like, the name of the actual shape of your feet. I don't know those, but you generally can tell by looking at your foot and understanding what type of toe box you need.
Maybe you need a different shoe shape. Maybe you need a square toe, a round toe. Maybe you need, you know, where the foot hits on your toes or where the widest part of your shoe is, you maybe need it to be higher or lower based on the comfort that you need.
[09:00]
So I have a really good recent client example of how this all sort of works together.
So I was shopping with a dear client of mine at Bared Footwear. It's a brand that I'm going to be recommending later. But she has quite a few foot problems and was in a boot based on it. So we're really on this quest to find cute, comfortable shoes. She's a keynote speaker, so we need things that kind of give her that professionalism. But she has very high arches, a wider foot, and bunions.
So she'd often been wearing a size nine to accommodate the width and the bunions. Then she had her feet professionally measured and discovered that her actual measured size was closer to a seven and a half. So that's a size and a half different.
But we couldn't just put her in a seven and a half and say, like, great, problem totally solved because of her high arches and her wider foot and bunions.
[10:00]
We figured out that she also needed an ankle strap to hold her foot back and to keep it properly positioned where the arch support is in the shoe. And that was a really big breakthrough for us to understand what considerations we needed for the shoe to actually support her.
We ultimately ended up buying her a size eight in the right shoe, in the right brand for her, which in this case was Bared.
So I think this is such a good example of why there's no magical comfort shoe brand, because we've tried other comfort shoe brands on her and they just didn't work. And so she didn't just need a different size. We had to consider the size, the width, the last, the arch support, the design of the shoe, the shape of the shoe to find the right fit for her.
So that's just how it all comes together.
The fourth consideration is to know what you're asking the shoe to do.
[11:00]
Now we know that we want the shoe to be comfortable on our feet, right? But let's talk about what we're asking it to do in our lives. And comfort isn't really one universal standard.
For example, are you wearing this shoe to a dinner where you're mostly sitting? Are you standing at a cocktail party for three hours straight? Are you commuting to work in this shoe? Are you walking two miles sightseeing? Are you walking, you know, twenty blocks from your office to lunch?
These are all very different jobs for the shoe.
And so a shoe that I may find perfectly comfortable for a dinner because I'm not standing a lot—I'm going from the car to a restaurant or just walking here in the subway to the restaurant—that may be a different shoe that I need than, maybe it seems obvious, but carrying you 15,000 steps in sneakers.
It's the balance of style and function.
[12:00]
So maybe there is a shoe that sometimes we're considering function the most because we're walking so much in it. And maybe sometimes you can, like, sacrifice that little teensy bit of comfort for style because you're not actually going to be standing on it very often.
So that's just something to think about when you're trying on shoes, and think about how long you're going to be standing in them, where you're going to be standing on them too. Is it going to be grass? Is it going to be cement? Is it going to be concrete? That makes a difference on how it feels on the bottom of our foot.
Now that we know our sizes, our arch, our foot shape, and what we actually need the shoe to do, let's talk about brands.
So finding your comfortable shoe brand may take a little experimentation. I'm sorry. I mean, hot take here, it's so hard to shoe shop in New York because there's a lot of beautiful fashion brands, but there aren't a lot of the brands that are sort of in the middle that are comfort with fashion.
[13:00]
So we want to consistently work to find the brands that are your aces. So you don't have to start from scratch every single time that you're trying to buy a new pair of shoes.
So I want you to keep track of the brands that work for you, the sizes you typically wear. And as we've already talked about, you may be one size in one brand, you may be another size in another brand. The number doesn't matter, it's the fit. And it usually will be a little more consistent within a brand and within certain styles in a brand.
As I said with that, as brands get new styles out, use their customer service and you can say, “I wear a size seven and a half in such-and-such style. Does this fit similarly to that?”
And they should be able to tell you that because there's a last, or a form that the shoe is built around, and most brands will have a couple of different lasts.
[14:00]
So they can tell you, yes, this shoe fits like such-and-such shoe because it has the same last. The toe box is as wide. It's built with the same arch support, et cetera, et cetera.
So then you have actual information on brands. So instead of just asking, “Does this run true to size?” you have more to work with within a brand.
So as I said, over time you're basically building yourself a little, save your sole, pun intended, of your shoe-fit cheat sheet. So these are my brands. You're gonna know these are my sizes, these are the styles and shapes that work for my feet.
And by the way, little plug, if you're a BU Style Circle member, we've already created a place for you to keep track of all of this information. We have a Strategic Sizing List chart for you that you can fill in your sizes, your brands, and then you can know when you're going back to buy what you have, what you need.
[15:00]
All right, so I've talked enough. Now let's talk brands. The question that was actually asked to me, but you know I have to fill it all in and get to more of it.
So I'm gonna just tell you a little bit about why I like each of these brands. There are tons more brands. Most of these are womenswear. Some of them also have menswear. This is not a comprehensive list. There are actually a lot more comfort brands that are cute, but hopefully these can help you start in your brand discovery if you are on this quest as well.
First one, as I mentioned, is Bared Footwear. It's an Australian brand created by a female podiatrist.
While they don't make wide or narrow, they work well for wider feet. And my favorite thing—this is a pair of Bared shoes right here that I'm holding up if you're watching this on YouTube—but they come with a variety of insoles and cushions with their shoes.
[16:00]
So when I got this pair, it had a nice little bag in it that had an insole with more arch support, one with less, and then it had, like, a little gel pad that you could just put in the front.
So they're cute shoes with beautiful details. I love Bared.
The other one is Ally Shoes, A-L-L-Y. This is another female-founded brand created with a female podiatrist specifically to make dress shoes and heels more comfortable.
So this is the brand to check out if you need professional, those classic pumps, black, you know, tan, those things that you're wearing to work that you've decided, “I am not going to be uncomfortable anymore.”
They have built-in arch support and cushioning, but what I really love is that they have half sizing and four different widths. They have narrow, medium, wide, and extra wide. So if you love a pointed-toe pump but struggle to find one that actually fits your feet, Ally may be a great one to try.
[17:00]
The next brand is Sole Bliss. This is a very great brand if you have bunions or wide feet. They have a deep, wide toe box, tons of cushioning, and this little clever hidden stretch panel that they call the Bunion Bed that gives you extra room around your bunions and the sensitive joints.
They make really pretty shoes. They are really known for their heels, and they've been worn a lot on the red carpets by a lot of celebrities. So they're sort of that solution to an evening-wear shoe. So you still get the height, but with all of the, you know, ergonomic considerations.
Another one isn't specifically a comfort brand, but it's Margaux. I wanted to include it as just a general regular option. They're known for really beautiful classic shoes, ballet flats, loafers, pointy-toe pumps, kitten-heel pumps, all of the things, but they all have extra foam padding in them, flexible construction, and many of their styles also come in multiple widths, which is harder to find these days.
[18:00]
So they're a great one to look at when you want a, you know, something polished, something classic that still feels like a more fashion shoe.
Another one is a comfort brand, and that's Vionic, but their styles have gotten so much better over the last few years. Their shoes are designed with built-in arch support. I actually have some of their slippers, and they're my favorite slippers. They have a really nice deep heel for stability and flexibility throughout the forefoot.
I also like that they offer a lot of wide-width options. So it's a great brand to explore if you know you need more substantive support around your shoe, but still something that feels current, stylish.
They're also available on a lot of the major retailers like Nordstrom. I believe they're also maybe on Macy's. Can't remember all of them, but they are often available at department stores.
Another one that's been on the podcast before is Nomasei.
[19:00]
This is my Fashion Girl Comfort Pick. It's founded by female French designers. It came from a luxury brand, handmade in Italy. They make really beautiful shoes. I have some of their loafers. I've been able to traipse around the city.
One of their founders has been on our podcast, so I've linked the episode in the show notes for you to learn more about Nomasei.
Two more brands here I'm gonna share. One is Calla. If you have bunions or a wider forefoot, know this brand. It's a female-founded British brand. Notice that most of these are female-founded because all these women are tired of being uncomfortable in shoes.
And she struggled with bunions herself, the founder. And so I like that they're wider through the toe box where you actually need the room, but they're more standard through the heel. So it's good if you find yourself slipping out of a wide foot in the heel because it's wider in the front. So that takes care of that annoying problem.
They also incorporate cushioning, arch support, stretch panels in all the sensitive areas.
[20:00]
And finally there's VIVAIA. You may already know them for their knit flats. Now they make everything. I've mentioned them as a travel shoe that I wore. They've got loafers, Mary Janes. They have a stretchy knit upper. All of their shoes are knit, so you don't have to break in a leather. And so they'll just mold to your foot.
I particularly like that they're paying more attention to being a little more fashion-forward. Again, they've had an evolution within their style. They've recently launched collabs with Jenna Lyons. Anne Hathaway recently wore their shoes, so it's one to worth—like, it's one to revisit if you haven't revisited them in a while or to check out.
[20:20]
So I just want to remind you that these brands are all just a starting point, but you asked and I wanted to give you the brands. They're not a prescription, they are an experiment. Try things on, walk around.
We had other tips in shoes. Try them on later in the day. I'll link to an episode that shares some of those considerations to make on when to try on shoes and what to think about.
But Lindsay, I want to thank you for this question because I know you are not alone in being over uncomfortable shoes. I hear it from my clients. I'm over it, and I am thrilled that we're living in a time where we are demanding more from our shoes and we want style and comfort, and there are so many more options.
When I first started styling, I would literally walk around in three-and-a-half-inch heels for four hours, and they were not comfortable then. I don't walk around in three-and-a-half-inch heels anymore to shop, but I can do a little heel because shoes are more comfortable now.
And I think the biggest takeaway from this episode is that the most comfortable shoe brand isn't necessarily one that somebody else on the internet tells you is comfortable. It's the one that works for your feet.
So know your size, know your arch, know your foot shape, think about what you're asking the shoe to do. Experiment until you find your shoe aces.
Your Cinderella slipper may be completely different from mine. And that is the whole point.
So Lindsay, may you and all of our listeners live happily ever after with fewer foot pains and happier feet.