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The power of high heels is undeniable. Nothing is sexier than a woman in heels. I know for me personally as well as my friends, fellow fashionistas and all of my personal clients, wearing heels magically makes women feel on top of the world.

Okay, confession time: after 13 years in the fashion world, despite countless attempts to master a heel I keep coming up flat.  My tolerance time for heels is about five minutes and then, out of necessity, out of survival, I flee to flat boots and ballet flats.  I can’t even stand in heels or even walk to a cab – let along walk all over the city in them.

This is what happens.  First my legs begin to twitch. This quickly escalates to trembling and soon my whole body starts vibrating. My ankles cramp, my feet freeze, and my steps become slow and stiff. I am determined to walk at least a block but fully realize how ridiculous I must look: stomping one leg down at a time, readjusting my body and balance with each step and swaying my arms with tightly balled fists. Inevitably I end up going straight back home, all sweaty and disheveled, kick off my heels and slip into my “failure” flats so I can easily and quickly pitter patter down the pavement.

I’ve researched every fashion trick and tip in the book and the truth is, although a wedge or platform is more comfortable, nothing beats the Christian Louboutin dagger heels. These ubiquitous buzz-worthy heels began to tempt and taunt me; they screamed Sexy, Seductive, Superwoman. I envisioned myself as Jessica Rabbit, surrounded by dozens of guys with their tongues hanging out like a rolled out red carpet at my feet.

Now that fashion week is around the corner I’m on a mission to master the heel. Last year I wore my highest heel to the tents and within ten minutes of arriving I was walking around barefoot. Yes barefoot! I looked like a little girl in my bare feet among all the glamazons in sky-high heels. Hardly the glamorous look I was going for when I had put my heels on earlier that day!  For the rest of the evening, I grasped my high heels between my fingertips.  Never were they to touch the floor again.

This year walking barefoot, heels in hand is out of the question so I went straight to the top females in fashion for a crash course on how to walk in high heels and here is what they suggested….

With Champagne and an attitude.
–Mary Alice Stephenson

How to walk in high heels? With lots of practice–provided the shoes are the right fit to begin with.
–Cathy Horyn

With a dose of Motrin and great pride!
–Stephanie F Solomon

Walking in high heels is a fine art-I wouldn’t say I walk so much as totter in some of mine but the main thing is that I totter with style. When I put on my Louboutins, I do transform. They give you that certain angle that is just erotic. They make me walk like a 1950s siren-rouged up and curvaceous but in all the right places. And if heels can do that for you, even if its just psychological, then I want a pair.
–Holly Fulton

I found heels alot easier to walk in than in my ballerina point shoes……! I also question why wearing heels at night is much less effortless and painless than wearing them in the day time?
–Leila Antakly

It’s all about practice makes perfect.  Anyone can walk in high heels if they have the right shoe, good fit, right type etc….we can all be in that Cinderella story.
–Georgina Goodman

To make comfortable shoes you need to make sure you use soft leathers, and have a good last. I think walking in heels are more comfortable when you wear a wedge. That works for me 10 hours a day on my my feet.
–Tabitha Simmons

Much in the same way I breathe … naturally and without much thought
–Michelle Harper

With a girlfriend for support…or alcohol!
–Michelle Ochs

I am the worst person in heels!! And always jealous of those women who can walk around all day effortlessly!! Any tips on how to improve in this area would be much appreciated so I can finally start enjoying my shoe collection!!
–Anya Yiapanis

I don’t wear high heels anymore, I only wear platforms but I agree [with your article] if you cannot walk and feel comfortable in your shoes don’t buy them. It will definitely ruin your look if you start walking in a strange manner.
–Diane Pernet

Okay here it goes…for those beginners a platform heel is your best friend. The elevated front cuts down on the incline making the whole experience a lot easier. When you put on heels you instantly (and dare I say naturally) adjust your body so that while you’re putting more weight on the front of your foot, you balance that by sticking your butt out just a bit more. Why do you think men like women in heels so much?
–Kate Dimmock

Shopping has always been my drug of choice. Whether I’m happy and excited, anxious and uncertain, or feeling alone and depressed, I have always used shopping as my quick fix and coping mechanism.  There is no better high than going shopping. But like most addictions, the high is short-lived. After I get the bags to my apartment, the rush of happiness quickly deflates, leaving me with the same feelings I had before the shopping adventure. I caught myself before spiraling downward into a full-blown credit crisis of my own. But many people who have struggled with shopping addictions and are beginning to recover have recently been talking about a new factor that has made the struggle that much harder: Online Shopping.

E-commerce is one of the most innovative and successful developments to hit the fashion and beauty world.  I cannot imagine a world without Net-a-Porter, Bluefly, Ebay or Gilt Groupe. E-commerce opened a Pandora’s Box of endless spending opportunity for fashion and beauty shoppers: auction alerts, 24-hour customer service, convenience, comparison shopping to the best sales, discounts, and deals.

No more missing store hours! No more schlepping various shopping bags around. Often it’s 24-hour delivery and beautiful packaging sitting at your doorstep like a carefully wrapped Christmas present. Most importantly there is now access to global fashion regardless of where you live. Urban and rural fashion lovers unite!

Add to all of this the convenience and privacy of shopping at home and it’s not surprising that shopping online is a curse for struggling shopoholics. But online shopping addiction is not just a risk for recovering shopoholics. It has, in fact, created a whole new category of addicts: Internet Shopping Addicts.  Over the last fifteen years, Internet Addiction Disorder, the problematic use (and abuse) of the Internet–from Facebook to emails to chat rooms and online shopping–has become a major focus of research that has been formally recognized by the American Psychological Association.

One of the largest centers focused solely on internet addiction, the Center for On-Line Addiction, previously focused on internet sex addicts, chat addicts, and gambling addicts but within the last decade has turned their attention to the latest online addiction: shopping. Compulsive and impulsive behaviors, found in traditional shopoholics are simply transferred to the online world and, in some cases, enhanced because it can be easily hidden from family and friends.

The recognizable advantages of online shopping are accessibility and convenience. What pushes consumers over the edge into addiction is the excitement of “finding the deal”.  Daily alerts and email notifications for the latest fashion and beauty sales –in particular the sites that have an auction platform like eBay or limited time only sales like Gilt Groupe –evoke a high similar to gambling.  This “high” is not just emotional but physical: a chemical response in your brain (serotonin and dopamine release making you feel good) stimulates the need to purchase. Daily email notifications for upcoming sales with a time limit and “first come first serve” shopping mentality is the perfect hook into loyal, fashion savvy, obsessed shoppers. Women are more likely to buy fast, furiously and without thinking when they find themselves in a race. Competing with millions of consumers in a limited time frame with limited product, the time-sensitive deal has emerged as the “crack” of e-commerce.

I never make rational decisions when under pressure so it makes sense that people shopping online in a time sensitive situation are more likely going to point and click immediately to ensure they got the product before anyone else did, regardless if they wanted it or not. I can’t tell you how many times I have impulsively bought something just because it was a high end designer that I would never be able to afford if it wasn’t 50% off, leaving me many times with the wrong size or something that just sits n the closet but I never end up wearing.

I adore Gilt Groupe and because I know that everyday at noon the sale will open, I need to be somewhere where I can access the Internet to get my daily fix. What a rush, what an achievement to get the item that I truly want in time, and that I would never be able to afford otherwise. So many of my friends and family are also members. I always laugh when I think about how many of us, no matter where we are, come together for the first five minutes, aligned on the internet, many days at noon.  Clicking without Thinking! Shopping without blinking!

Most of these sites are set up so that transaction process is easy and instant.  Once they have your information and credit card, it becomes insidious – I mean automatic. Shoppers simply point-click-repeat without realizing how much they are spending until they receive their credit card statement.  Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, a financial expert and author of “Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom,” states that consumers spend 20-40 percent more when using a credit card over cash”(www.lemondrop.com).  In my case, she nailed it.  I am 100 times less likely to buy something if I have to pay cash in hand. With a credit card, I just shop, swipe and buy without thinking about it because the cost is not tangible.  When shopping online women tend to spend more and more often, without really realizing how much they are charging. Avis Cardella, author of the new book “Spent: memoirs of a Shopping Addict”, pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal article, that shoppers feel “more pain when we have to part with cash as opposed to credit card.” He later posited, “I imagine shopping online or via hand held device, anesthetizes even further.”

Although online shopping addiction has always included both men and women (surprisingly men outspend women), a new demographic, Generation Y, (those born between 1977 and 1994) is poised to be the dominating generation in this arena.  According to the New York-based think tank for luxury brands, LuxuryLab,’s last “Generation Next Forum,”

Gen Y currently spends $150 billion a year on consumer goods. That’s five times more than their parents did at their age. They also influence another $50 billion in purchases made by others. Indeed, according to a recent report by Harris Interactive, one in every three-consumer dollars spent in the United States today is influenced by someone under the age of 18. Gen Y’s profound influence in the marketplace is directly linked to their familiarity with digital media.., 96% percent of Generation Y is active on at least one social networking site.

Mastering the online world is the key to success in contemporary society, but the easy access to buying products makes it that much more of a risk of creating a new generation of internet shopoholics. The most difficult part of this disorder is that so many times it goes unnoticed, unreported and untreated. Maybe there should be a warning on E-commerce sites: online shopping can become addictive. Shop at your own risk!