Article: Heels that love women: there's nothing like a stiletto to make your legs look incredible--and your toes suffer. Cole Haan uses sports-shoe technology to take the weight off your feet.(getting dressed)(Brief article)

WE LOVE HIGH HEELS, really we do, but they can be torture chambers for the feet. When you walk in four-inch stilettos, your entire body weight is transferred onto the ball of your foot; standing for long periods puts pressure on the heel, explains Cole Haan creative director Gordon Thompson (above). So he pioneered a line of shoes and boots that compensate for the weight shift with cushioning: Pads of thin, superresilient, densely woven material--like mini-airbags for the feet--are built right into the sole (see sketch, left).

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* Thompson views design as a way to solve problems, not just to make things look pretty. Trained as an ...

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